Lesson plan
How Does A Bill Become A Law?
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to list and describe the steps it takes for a bill to become a law.
Introduction
(5 minutes)- Tell your students that they will be learning about how a bill becomes a law today.
- Ask your students how they think a law becomes a law.
Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling
(30 minutes)- Go over the How Does A Bill Become A Law slideshow.
- Explain each slide with examples.
Guided Practice
(60 minutes)- Ask your students to get into groups of four.
- Ask each group to write a bill that they want to change into a law.
- Divide the class into three groups. The three groups should be senators, representatives, and committee members.
- Assign a speaker of the house and play the role of president yourself.
- Go through the steps of how to change a bill into a law for one of the bills using the three groups.
- After all the steps have been completed, change the roles of your students and repeat the process for the second bill.
- Have your students repeat the activities and switch roles until all bills have been debated.
- After all bills have been debated, go over the ones that passed and the ones that did not.
Independent working time
(20 minutes)- Ask your students to answer the questions on the How Does a Bill Become a Law: Reflection worksheet.
Differentiation
- Enrichment: Ask advanced students to partner up. Have each student write a bill with at least three sections. Have the students switch bills with their partners. Ask them to rewrite their partners' bills, making changes to each section of the bill.
- Support: Ask struggling students to think of a bill that could turn into a law. Go over the steps with your students while they illustrate what is happening to their bill at each step.
Assessment
(20 minutes)- Ask your students to write and explain the steps that it takes for a bill to become a law.
Review and closing
(10 minutes)- Have your students to discuss some of their answers from the worksheet as a class.
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