The U.S. Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, and our nation celebrates its 220th birthday this month. In 2004, Congress designated this day as National Constitution and Citizenship Day, combining it with the existing Citizenship Day tribute. The legislation requires all schools that receive federal funds to integrate activities related to understanding the structure, heritage, and benefits of the Constitution.

Activity: Studying any topic/issue becomes much more effective if teachers and librarians pre-select learning resources appropriate for their students. Traditional library services include the "book cart" as a strategy of delivering custom print resources to teacher classrooms. Our eLibrary BookCarts leverage technology to provide today's unique digital tool, which uses the same strategy but with added benefits.

When BookCarts are used for student research activities, teachers and students reap the following benefits:

• Student understanding increases when teachers provide reading-level-appropriate articles
• Student interest increases because teachers can select appropriate articles and websites
• Learning time is conserved because surfing and distractions are dramatically reduced
• Focused relevancy and authority of resources is ensured for each activity
• Lesson plan elements added to BookCarts ensure that students know what to do with resources

The good news is that ProQuest has created more than 600 K-12 models for teachers and librarians to use across the curriculum.

To support National Constitution Day, we've created the following BookCarts:

• U.S. Constitution: Current Challenges - High School
• Understanding the Constitution - Middle School
• Bill of Rights - Middle School

Copy these BookCarts (find out how.) Click the ProQuest Carts tab > SS -- Government & Civics folder (viewed in alphabetical order).

Each of these BookCarts contains essential question for critical thinking that teachers can assign to students or use as models to create others specific to their needs.