How laws are made

Arts & Humanities
Educational Technology
Social Studies
History
Visual Arts
Civics
Current Events
Government
U.S. History

Grades

• 3-5
• 6-8
• 9-12
• Advanced

Brief description

Objectives

• learn about the responsibilities of their elected leaders.
• learn the steps (from proposal to presidential signature) involved in making new laws.
• create a graphic organizer (work sheet included) that illustrates the steps in the lawmaking process.
• follow some actual legislation through the process.
• play the role of a representative or senator in proposing and acting on legislation.

Keywords

Materials needed

• How laws are made work sheet
• computer and/or Internet access (optional)

Lesson plan

In this lesson, students will learn about what representatives and senators do; they will also learn how the U.S. Congress creates and passes new laws. Online resources are provided to supplement students texts. Students will create a graphic organizer (work sheet provided, or they can use software such as Inspiration to create their own graphic organizer) to show the 9-step process from the time a bill is proposed to the day the President signs a bill into law.

You might begin the lesson by sharing a resource from Scholastic. What Does Congress Do? provides a simple overview of the role elected representatives play in creating new laws for the country.

Then help students dig a little deeper into the lawmaking process by providing additional resources. Your students social studies texts should have some good grade-level resources. Supplement those resources with one or more of the online Bill-to-Law Resources listed below.

If you do not have access to a computer, select one or more of the resources below to print and share with students.

Following are a few ways in which you can share those online resources:

• Share one or more of the Web pages as a whole-class activity. Use a projected image of the pages or gather students around a single computer.
• Students might complete this entire activity in a computer lab setting where each student has access to the resources.
• If you have one or two computers in your classroom, you might set up this activity as a learning center. Have students sign up for a time to use the computer to complete the activity. Bill-to-Law Online Resources
  Appropriate grade levels for each resource are indicated in parentheses.
• Bens Guide for Kids to U.S. Government: What is a law? (Grades 3-6)
• Bens Guide for Kids to U.S. Government: How laws are made (Grades 5-8)
• Project Vote Smart: How a bill becomes a law (Grades 5-12)
• The U.S. House of Representatives: The Legislative Process (Grades 6-12)
• Thomas legislative information on the Net: How our laws are made (Grades 8-12)

Note: You might also use supplemental reading books as resources for completing this activity; the Education World article Elections and our government -- in words a third grader can understand! tells about one excellent resource.

Provide each student with a copy of the How laws are made work sheet. The work sheet provides a graphic organizer for students to use as they boil down the bill-to-law process to its 9 steps. Students should explain each step in their own words. The amount of information students provide, and the complexity of it, will depend on the students grade level.

If your students have access to computers, they might use graphic software such as Inspiration or Kidspiration to build their own graphic organizers to display the steps in the bill-to-law process.

Extension activities

• Set up a role-play activity in which students play the roles of representatives and/or senators. Each representative/senator will serve as a member of at least two committees. (See the List of senate committees.) They will vote on bills in those committees as well as all bills that make their way to a final vote.
• Use the official Web site of the Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives to follow the progress of a handful of legislation. You might follow legislation that has been introduced by your states senator or representative; the local office of that elected official can provide you with additional resources -- or perhaps even a visit from the senator or representative. Another option: Have each student, or group of students, follow a separate piece of legislation.
• Have students write letters or e-mails to their senator or representative. In those letters, students share their thoughts about a current piece of legislation. Students can access the mailing information they need using the Communicating With Congress page at the Congress.org Web site.
• Create a bulletin board that displays on a large scale the information students write in their How Laws Are Made graphic organizers.

Assessment

Students will use their graphic organizers to write a paragraph briefly explaining the bill-to-law process.

Education World

Submitted By

Gary Hopkins

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