committee assignments for Monday and further directions

Here are your committee assignments for Monday.  Please remember to research two facts total (either in support of or against) on the topics of bills you're committee will be working on in class on Monday.  You only need two total facts, not two facts for each bill.  Please have the source information written down for each, and be sure it's reliable (not Bob's blog!!).

I did have to pick and choose between your proposed bills to do this.  If your bill wasn't chosen, it's not a reflection on the quality of the bill or your ideas, but rather to get some variety in the activity and keep the procedure as simple as possible.  

Education committee:  Redate, Greta, Yana, Imani, Maureen 

Proposed bill:  raising the minimum drop out age for high school students from 16 to 18

Legal age limits committee:  Jack, Kate M, Marissa, Catherine, Kate C

Proposed bill:  raise the minimum age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 19 in all states

Energy committee:  Ian, Mitchell, Isaac

 Proposed bill: increase the tax on imported oil 

Public welfare committee:  Julia, Savannah, Erin, Emily

Proposed bill:  cities/towns must build or designate road lanes specifically for bike traffic

Healthy living committee:  Zach, Will D, Will S, Alex 

School lunches must be served between 11pm and 1 pm.

Marijuana legalization committee:  Nick, Max, Emmit
Proposed bill:  would legalize marijuana in the following ways:

-people over the age of 21 can obtain a license to open a dispensary

-people over 21 can farm 25 square feet of marijuana for personal use or to sell

-people over 18 can buy from a dispensary to use for medical purposes

-companies can farm industrial hemp less than a 3% THC content (THC is the active drug in marijuana) to use for paper, ropes, or other products that cannot be smoked

For Tuesday, you will be researching each of the other bills (other than the one being discussed in your committee) and finding one fact for each that reflects your opinion on the bill (whether you think it should or should not be passed).  Include the source information.

For Thursday, you will need to reflect on the entire mock Congress process.  Details to follow.  

  

Due Thurs 11/29 and Fri 11/30

Due tomorrow (Thursday 11/29):
the second column of the Bill of Rights chart, and the third column on amendments 1-3 if you sit in the two rows by the door, amendments 4-6 if you sit in the middle two rows, and 7-10 if you sit in the two rows by the window (according to the new seating plan).

Due Friday (11/30):
Read through these primary sources and write a short (1 paragraph response) about which you think are the strongest and weakest arguments of this group, what your overall opinion is about the second amendment, and whether or not these opinions swayed you at all from your original stance.

Please refer to the excerpts specifically by name and/or author's name, refer to at least one document for each side of the argument and reference at least one of the longer (paragraph long) documents.

Here's the bill of rights chart from class today.

due Wednesday 11/28

Due tomorrow:  the handout from class (either Benjamin Banneker or Abby Adams primary source document) - please answer the questions on the back and the additional questions from class:  what arguments does the author make for equal treatment in the new government, and how valid are these arguments?

due Tuesday 11/26

Due Tuesday after break (11/27) and worth 5 points:

Please read through the "Constitution handbook" thoroughly--you are responsible for the information presented here--and, based on your reading, creating a thoughtful bumper sticker that either supports or critiques the ideas presented in the reading.  Please stay away from the well-known format ("honk if you love democracy!" and "I break for checks and balances," etc.).  Though we all know and love them, let's try to be original with this.

To create the bumper sticker itself, simply fold an 8 x 10 piece of white paper in half vertically and cut down the middle.  You will only need half the page for your creation, which needs to be thoughtful in its message and neat and colorful in its presentation.  It should use the space well and any writing and images should be clear and legible.

Also due Tuesday:  this guide to the Constitution (11/27)

due Monday 11/19

(Please remember your debate prep for tomorrow - read the handout and answer the 3 questions).

The Best (and Worst) of American Government:  Current Events Assignment

For this assignment, please find a current news story from within the past 2 months that you think reflects either one of the benefits of the American democratic system OR one of the drawbacks of it.  Please choose a news story reported by a reputable mainstream media outlet (i.e. not a general source of information, like Wikipedia, and not Bob’s blog or any other questionable source).  

Summarize the article in 1-2 paragraphs, then write a 1-2 paragraph analysis of the article.  In your analysis, consider the following:
-how does this newsworthy event demonstrate either the best or worst of the American democratic system?
-why did you choose this particular topic?
-what further questions does it raise for you, or what topics does it introduce that you’d like to know more about or understand better?

Your response needs to be 1-2 double spaced, typed pages.  You do not need to include a printout of the article, but you do need to include the publication information (the name of the publication/media source, the date it was reported, the name of the article and the author) somewhere in your response.  

This assignment is due Monday 11/19 and is worth 10 points (2 homeworks) for 2nd quarter. Please have it printed and ready to hand in at the start of class.

due the week of 11/13-11/16

For Wednesday's class (11/14) please read and take two pages of notes on p. 159-168 (you may skip the section on "the background of the Constitution")

due Friday 11/9

For Friday 11/9, please read to the end of chapter 4 in Brinkley and take 2 pages of notes.

homework for Monday 11/5

Your American Revolution test is Wednesday 11/7.  Please see earlier post with study questions.

For Monday 11/5, please do the following:

1.  Read through the song lyrics and look at the artwork in the packet.  In the margins, make 5 relevant, meaningful connections between the images or the song lyrics and the key events or major themes of the revolutionary war era.  These connections may be brief (a sentence or two each) but need to be meaningful (i.e. not "George Washington is in one of the pictures, and he was a key figure of the revolution.").  You may want to (but don't necessarily have to) consider how the events or ideas are depicted in the images, and what they tells us.  You may click here to see the digital version of the images, in case they aren't apparent on photocopy.  (There may be additional images in the PowerPoint that aren't on the sheet that you may disregard).

2.  Also, look back at your list of rights the colonists believed that they and, on a separate page, choose any 3 of those rights we listed and cite a specific example of a time when they were deprived of that right.

Each assignment above is worth 5 points.