HOW DO WE LIVE WELL TOGETHER IN A WELL ORDERED SOCIETY?
The first assignment of this unit, called "What is a Constitution", was to identify order and disorder in both our own lives and in the United States or our communities. We took the idea of order and disorder and looked at how the constitutional theorists thought of order and disorder. Before addressing the question “How do we live well together in a well-ordered society” according to Madison, we addressed the same question when reading papers from other constitutional theorists, including Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson. To analyse and compare each of the papers, we used a chart composed of concentric rectangles. The purpose of the boxes was to compare different aspects of each piece to each other and analyse each document on its own. We began with a chart with all of the boxes you see on the right except the purple constitution box to analyse all of the readings except the Federalist Papers. After reading the Federalist Papers, we used the chart to the right with the constitution box to analyse and compare each of the readings. The final assignment of this unit was to read a Federalist Paper and present it in a creative and understandable way to our classmates.
Introduction
The Process
Reflection
To begin, we read James Madison's Federalist Paper #14 and took general notes. While reading we considered the boxes to the right and how Madison's ideas fit into the diagram. After reading Federalist Paper #14, we were tasked with presenting the information in a creative and understandable way. We chose to create a comic strip using a website called Pixton. To do this, we came up with the main points from the Federalist Paper that we needed to get across and then came up with a story to incorporate these points. Some of the most important points of Federalist Paper #14 included the differences between a direct democracy and a republic and which of these types of government is best for the United States. After determining the topics we needed to incorporate into the comic, we picked our characters and customized them using options given on Pixton. The two characters we chose for our comic were James Madison and a student. The basic story involves a student learning about the Federalists Papers in class. She is very confused about what she is learning but she must make a speech about the Federalist Papers. Luckily, all of the answers come to her in a dream that night in which she meets James Madison and asks him all of her questions. Below is the final product and by clicking on the image, you will be able to view a PDF version.
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This unit as a whole taught me that there are other meanings to the word "constitution" besides referring to the United States Constitution. The earlier constitutional theorists discussed the constitution of society and which make up is best for the people. For Aristotle, the best constitution was a large middle class because they keep the society balanced, whereas Hobbes believed the best constitution was a "Leviathan" in which an individual or small group held all power over the people. Each theorist helped us answer the question of how we live well together in a well ordered society differently. After reading Federalist Paper #14 and viewing my classmates' projects on Federalist Papers numbers 10, 48, 49, and 51 I learned that living well together in a well ordered society according to James Madison is having a government in which the people hold power and have a voice. I also learned that Madison also discusses the importance of using the naturally competitive and power hungry tendencies of humans to their advantage when forming government. This creates a system of checks and balances because people will be competing for power, therefore not allowing others to gain too much power. This is one of the new concepts that James Madison contributed to constitutional theory that had not been seen before.
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Presenting Madison's ideas in a comic stip made them easier for me to understand because the comic stip drew out all of the most important points and depicted them in a similar way in words that were easy to understand. In the final block of the comic, we chose to take a direct quote from Federalist Paper #14 because we thought it summed up nicely the paper as a whole because the quote says that America is trying a new type of government that has never been seen before and while there are people in disbelief, doubting the country, the new type of government will unite the citizens and creating an orderly society. I thought this quote that emphasizes the importance of unity in a society and innovation of American summarized James Madison's ideas well because he brought many new ideas to the table regarding constitutional theory.