1. The Structure of Political and Legal Systems in Ancient Empires
Do People Control the Government or Does the Government Control the People?
The Structure of Political and Legal Systems in Ancient Empires
WH.H.2.2

2. Create a Government by These Rules:
You have 10
Minutes
Pick a name for your island
Define Jobs: hunting & gathering food, cooking food, making shelter, exploring, fishing, caring for the sick
How will you determine if someone is guilty of breaking the rules?
What is the punishment for breaking the rules?
How will you make rules?
List some of your rules.
Whole class activity
Let it go for 10 minutes
Stop and explain how difficult it is to form a government
What happened – debrief
Brainstorm types of governments

3. Oligarchy
Form of government in which the power is in the hands of a few leaders
Monarchy
Form of government in which power is in the hands of 1 person

4. Democracy
Form of government in which ruling power is in the hands of the people.
Tyranny
Form of government in which the ruling power is in the hands of a person who seized power.

5. Pictowords
A pictoword is a drawing that uses the letters in a word to symbolize the word’s meaning.
Create a pictoword for each form of government that was practiced in ancient Greece: monarchy, oligarchy, tyranny, and democracy.

7. A drought has limited your food supply. How will you allocate your food?
Each Group will role play a presentation on how your assigned type of government will make the decision.
You will have 5 minutes to prepare.
Presentation should be no more than 1 minute
As a class, have students choose an issue (global, national, state, local, or school) on which there are divided opinions. Explain to students that they will be role-playing the different forms of government they have been
studying in ancient Greece.
Divide the class into four groups. One group will be a monarchy, one an oligarchy, one a tyranny, and one a direct
democracy.
Tell students that when the entire class convenes, each group will role play the presentation and decision on the issue as it would have happened under their particular form of government. Groups will have fifteen minutes to decide how their government will deal with the issue. They will assign roles within their group – monarch, aristocrats, nobles, archon, etc, appropriate to their assigned form of government.
They will also decide who will present the issue and how it will be presented. Students may use their two readings and graphic organizer for background information. They may also choose to write scripts. Circulate and make sure each group is on track.
Remind the direct democracy group that only males may participate.
When the entire class re-convenes ,each group will make their presentation (approximately 3-5 minutes).
The rest of the class will participate as citizens under each particular form of government. Follow-up with discussion on how students felt as citizens under each of the four different governments.