United States Government: Democracy in Action

Unit 2: The Legislative Branch

Big Idea Activity — Lesson Plan

Is there a better way to make laws?

Assignment: Draft a Proposal
Draft a bill proposing the courses all students in your school must complete during their senior year.

Assignment Task List

Step 1: Discuss with students how a bill becomes a law. Project StudentWorks Plus Online, page 185 of the Student Edition on the whiteboard and circle the steps as you name and discuss them.

Differentiated Instruction Reinforce the sequence of bill-to-law steps by completing Guided Reading Activity 7-1 (80.0K) with students. Project this worksheet on the whiteboard and call on students to come up and mark each answer. (This calls for whole class participation. The student marks what the majority says the answer is.)

Differentiated Instruction Challenge a student (or students) to complete Reteaching Activity 7 (83.0K) . Project this worksheet on the whiteboard and have the volunteer(s) come up and mark each answer.

Step 2: An equal number of students should be placed in each subcommittee. The subcommittee members will be evenly divided into two whole committees in Step 5.

Step 3: Have subcommittees A–E go online to research at least three states' curriculum standards in the categories provided on the Activity sheet. Provide subcommittee F with direction for writing closed and open survey questions. Project the Concept-Definition Diagram chart on the whiteboard and add information such as that shown below to help students create questions for their course curriculum survey.

What is it? Closed Survey
Characteristics: Focused questions accompanied by a rating system or choice of answers
What are some examples? On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being highly important and 5 being unimportant, where would you rate the importance of learning about U.S. government?

What is it? Open Survey
Characteristics: General questions with no rating system or possible answers
What are some examples? What do you think is the most important course students should take their senior year?

Steps 4 and 5: As they work in their whole committees, remind students to utilize the information from the survey results and state standards to outline a firm plan of course requirements.

Differentiated Instruction Encourage below level students or English Language Learners to participate by assigning them the task of taking roll call on the whole committees' voting.

Step 6: Encourage dissent among the whole committees' proposals so that a "negotiating committee" must come to a consensus. Ask students to identify the "negotiating committee" in Congress (conference committee). Direct the rest of the class to decide how they will approve the final proposal—by a majority vote, by a two-thirds majority vote, or other.

Differentiated Instruction Define the following terms for students: majority (more than half); two-thirds majority (at least two-thirds of the number of voters).

Step 7: Three students from the negotiating committee will return to each whole committee to present the negotiated proposal. One member from the negotiating committee will list the negotiated course requirements on the board.

Step 8: Students will vote on the negotiated course requirements. Utilize the approval process decided in Step 6. Summarize with students the process they followed to draft the proposal. Was the process efficient? Laborious? Was it fair? Then present the Big Idea question below.

Self-Assessment
Encourage students to self-assess their participation according to the following items:
___ excellent use of planning time
___ detailed research that resulted in informative and insightful comments
___ harmonious and respectful peer suggestions and feedback
___ superlative grasp of the issues
___ exceptionally well organized survey questions
___ clear, concise, and thought provoking arguments and rebuttals

After the final draft proposal has been voted on, have students discuss this question: Is there a better way to make laws?