Semantic Constitution | Educating with Evidence | SIU

Semantic Constitution

Revitalizing a “Lost” Tool

In 2010, a powerful teaching tool, the Semantic Constitution, seemed to have “disappeared.” Created over 20 years ago through a Robert H. Michel Civic Engagement Grant from the Dirksen Congressional Center, Professor John K. Lee presented a website that allows users to analyze the U.S. Constitution as a “web-based historical document” through 104 concepts that range from Appointments to Tariffs. Soon after the website’s creation, he and Dr. Brendan Calandra reported their findings in the 2004 article, “Can Embedded Annotations Help High School Students Perform Problem Solving Tasks Using a Web-Based Historical Document?” The findings were positive, but too soon after this article’s publication, the website was removed from the Internet with its last copyright listed in 2003.

In 2025, the power of this teaching tool in an inquiry-based social studies classroom seems more prevalent than ever. Using the webpage’s original URL from Georgia State University (http://msit.gsu.edu/socialstudies/constitution/index.asp) in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, we were able to recover the organizing details of this site and have recreated them here as a free service for civics educators.

Using the Semantic Constitution

Though the inquiry options for this tool are immense, there are two basic ways educators can approach using the Semantic Constitution. The first is driven by open-ended curiosity. The U.S. Constitution includes language about alcohol? Why? How? What does the U.S. Constitution say about tariffs? These questions can then lead to comparing concepts such as the rights of the accused and equal protection or electing the president and disputed elections.

The second approach includes inquiry prompts around Constitution-related scenarios. Lee and Calandra (2004) offered four scenarios in their Journal of Research on Technology in Education article that included: 1) voting age, 2) creating a “Bill of Attainder” to avoid due process for accused terrorists, 3) the impeachment process, and 4) suspending the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War and the second Gulf War. In all of these scenarios, it is important for the researcher to be familiar with which of the 104 concepts are related to the scenario to be able to cite evidence when making claims about its constitutionality.