Hello everyone.  This is Marco Castillo, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the New York City College of Technology of CUNY.  This OpenLab website will present one of my favorite class assignments for my GOV 1101 – Introduction to American Government class.  The title of this assignment is “Reflections on a New Union.”  This class assignment is intended to prompt students to consider the conflicts early Americans faced as they formed a new nation, moving from a loosely knit confederacy under the Articles of Confederation toward a more powerful and consolidated national government under the United States Constitution. The lesson plan does so by prompting students to experience the tensions of the Federalist – Anti-Federalist debate in a modern light, as they utilize the hypothetical case of a US movement towards a North American Union to prompt discussion and debate about the social, political, and economic conflicts such a move may entail.