Thursday, May 7, 2015

Legislative Project

Look up House or Senate Committee assigned to you.
House of Representative
Senate
Standing

Special, Select, and Other
Group:
  • Is your committee in the House of Rep or Senate?
  • Who sits on that committee?
    • Who is the chairman, who is the Ranking member?
  • What are that committee’s responsibilities?


Individual:
  • What are three of the sub committees?
  • What important members of congress sit on those committees?
  • What are the current bills that the committee is working on?
  • What congressman sponsored the bill?  
  • What is the main stated purpose of the bill?


  • Choose one congress person on the committee.
    • Do they have any special qualifications to sit on that committee?
      Posit a reason why they might have wanted that position or been placed there?

 

legislative branch ppt.

Friday, May 1, 2015

Help for your SotU Essays

Peer Edit a classmates work.  Turn in with Final Draft initialed and red lined by at least one classmate.

Step 1  Look for:

Check first for answering outline questions fully.  should be able to easily find them in essay and understand the answer.

Essay should flow.  Verb agreement.  Do not switch between past and present tense in the course of the essay.

Run on sentences which ramble and don't flow.  Sentence Fragments which are missing a subject, verb, or predicate.


Outline

Paragraph 1: Introduction

-        Define purpose of the State of the Union

-        What are 3 of the issues that Obama talks about in SotU?

-        Which issue/action is most important?

Paragraph 2:  Body

-        Explain how your issue/concern is more important than the other two?

-        How does the evidence supplied by the president support that action?

-        What will happen if we do not solve the issue?

-        How will it benefit the nation if the action is passed into law?

Paragraph 3:  Body/Conclusion

-        Why is  your action controversial or not?

-        What party would support your action?  Why?

-        What party would oppose?  Why?

-        How might this issue be compromised to make it more palatable to both parties?

-Conclusion

Step 2:

Use the following websites to assist in flushing out 3rd Paragraph
Remember you can use ctrl-F to search documents for keywords like your issues.

Republican Platform Website


Democrat Platform Summary Website


Difference between Platforms  NYT article

Wednesday, April 15, 2015


Outline

Paragraph 1: Introduction

-        Define purpose of the State of the Union

-        What are 3 of the issues that Obama talks about in SotU?

-        Which issue/action is most important?

Paragraph 2:  Body

-        Explain how your issue/concern is more important than the other two?

-        How does the evidence supplied by the president support that action?

-        What will happen if we do not solve the issue?

-        How will it benefit the nation if the action is passed into law?

Paragraph 3:  Body/Conclusion

-        Why is  your action controversial or not?

-        What party would support your action?  Why?

-        What party would oppose?  Why?

-        How might this issue be compromised to make it more palatable to both parties?

-        Conclusion

Monday, March 30, 2015

Warm - ups

1/5  What is Government?
 1/12 In what structure does government have it’s roots?
 1/14 Define Morality
 1/15 What are 3 responsibilities of government?
 1/20 The Articles of Confed contained several weaknesses. Why would the states purposefully create a weak government?
 1/21 Question 54 and 58
 1/22 Explain how the Declaration of Indy and Articles of Confed Influenced the U.S. Constitution. 1/23 What is a Preamble?
 1/27 What Phrase of the Preamble is the most important?
 1/28 Which Congressional House is the lower house? Use comparative evidence to support your answer. 
1/29 Why does the House of Representatives have the power to tax and not the Senate? Explain. 
1/30 Assess which of the enumerated powers of Congress is most important? Give reasons why. 
2/11 Explain which of the 3 branches is most powerful. Use evidence from the Constitution to support your answer.
 2/13 From the video Ultimate Guide to the Presidents make a claim as to whether each of the first 5 presidents acted constitutionally or not.
 2/23 What is the purpose of the Bill of Rights?
 2/24 Which of the first amendment clauses is most important?
 2/25 Give 3 examples of when your freedom of religion or speech can or should be impinged upon? 2/26 Give your own example of when the freedom of the press, assembly, or petition should be restricted.
 3/12 Which clause of the 1st amendment would govern Mr. Otte holding a class prayer? Which other clause would it conflict with?
 3/16 Elected judges can be a positive because . . . Elected judges can be a negative because . . . I think they are a . . . because . . .
 3/17 What doctrine or precedent did Plessy v. Ferguson set? What were its long term effects?
 3/18 What was the legal reasoning in UC Davis v. Bakke? Use terms.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Welcome to Jefferson High School Government!

We'll be covering lots of things this semester, but we're starting with the three objectives of:

What is government?
What are the responsibilities of government?
Why is government important?
How is government formed?