Supreme Court Simulation Debrief Case Study

Joe Thompson Mrs. Cygan
US History
01 January 2017
Supreme Court Simulation debrief
The concept of the simulation is genius but when put into action with imatuer students who don’t ask questions nor understand the arguments that are being made it is hard to learn or take much from the simulation. My group comprehended the arguments and understood our own case and was successful in presenting because we took our time and learned the case in and out. I feel good about successfully completing our project because we didn’t just work on it last minute we were confident and ready the moment we got set to presentate. We knew what we had to say and do so it was a smooth transition. Me and my team worked extremely hard and a lot of work we did was at home we knew almost everything about our case and how to win it. Me and my team deserve an a for effort, execution, and hard work. We did not only win our case but we presented
with the strongest logical and emotionally arguments. We decided that the constitutional language is sufficiently vague so that it should cover flag burning that's why we took on emotions instead of the constitution.
The first and probably the most challenging part was dealing with the incompetence of Lenna since she was the devil's advocate it was also challenging to prepare for a counter-argument.
All she wrote was “Johnson should not be fined or thrown in jail because in 1789, freedom of speech was established in the first amendment of the United States. Johnson burnt the flag as a protest against Reagan Administration policies while shouting ‘America, the red white and blue, we spit on you’. Johnson had all the rights to burn the flag because it did not harm or kill anyone or anything”. This short statement was not helpful nor was it a counter-argument. This is why the rest of the team had to come up with the counter arguments because leena was a distraction and not needed for the team’s success. Another obstacle was trying to use the right language to persuade the judges without being too assertive or being to weak. We only did 3 arguments but on each argument we made it perfect by being just the right amount assertive and using logical
arguments.
The less challenging part was writing the actual argument because my opinion on the matter of flag burning is very strong. When you feeling very strongly on an opinion you try harder because you care more than you would about something you do not feeling strongly about. Also the majority of people believe that our flag shouldn’t be burned. All I had to do was use that, convincing evidence and charm to win. The easiest part of this simulation was presenting because our team was ready and prepared our arguments and prepared for questions too. This project took my understanding of the supreme court a lot higher and learned so much about actual real court cases. Not only did we have to learn our own cases in and out we had to listen and hear every court case that was assigned. This project allowed students to create opinions and argue in a simulation of the SCOTUS. This simulation was useful but the weak links in the armor need to be taken out.