Lesson Plan : How a Bill Becomes a Law
Teacher Name: | Sarah Thorson |
Grade: | Grade 11-12 |
Subject: | Social Studies |
Topic: | The process a bill goes through to become a law. |
Content: | senate, house of representatives, president, veto, override, special interest groups, politicians, standing committee, conference committee, joint committee, Speaker of the House, Presdient pro tempore |
Goals: | Students will participate in a simulation which follows several bills on their quests to become laws. By the end of the lesson, all students should be able to provide a basic outline of the events that must happen for a bill to become a law. |
Objectives: | Students will be able to describe the process a bill must follow to become a law. Students will be able to demonstrate the process of creating a law by completing a simulation. |
Materials: | Bill description sheets, pre-made groups (house & senate), directions sheet |
Introduction: | Have students read several "wacky" laws and respond in warm up journals as to how (and why)they think these laws were put into place. |
Development: | Students will read a short selection from their texts explaining the process a bill goes through. Students will brainstorm factors that could affect this process. |
Practice: | In groups, students will put a series of cards in the correct order to determine the process a bill must follow. |
Accommodations: | Students will be grouped accordingly--those who excel in interpersonal relationships will be put in the lobbiests group, those who are linguistic will be put on research committees, those who are more logical will be put on the standing committee to determine which bills are most likely to pass and so need to be focused on... |
Checking For Understanding: | Each student will complete an exit ticket. Their assignment will be to outline the process a bill takes to become a law. |
Closure: | At the end we will examine the status of each bill and as a class determine why some passed and some did not. We will identify the factors/reasons that came into play. |
Evaluation: | Students need to understand the basic process of having a bill become a law. Students must be able to explain what the job of each group/committee is in the law making process. |
Teacher Reflections: | Give students specific directions to avoid "down time" and uncertainty. |
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