American Constitutional Law and History is structured based on the belief that law students are best served by reading and assessing in detail the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions written by Supreme Court justices. In addition to guiding the students' understanding of the principal cases in an Afterword, the book offers tables, charts, timelines, and figures to allow students better to visualize, contextualize, and organize the material presented. The relative instability of constitutional law requires students not only to read the opinions for their doctrinal point, but to understand those opinions in light of the history of American constitutional law.

The third edition also emphasizes student understanding and use of the recurring types of legal arguments made in Supreme Court opinions, and it encourages student understanding of the Court's use (and rejection) of legal formalism, legal realism, and their successors.