More Congressional fun to come. I wanna really get this whole filibuster thing down pat, so I am start class with a review of the informal changes that the bodies in Congress themselves can make. The Nuclear Option (passed in November 2013, and reviewed in the previous lesson), is going to get it's due time once again. A brighter spotlight on the filibuster reveals that this maneuver has been around since 1806. The Senate dropped rules that ended debate by a majority vote. The Cloture Rule (Senate Rule XXII) was invoked in 1917 to try to green light Woodrow Wilson's desire for a declaration of war. This rule was amended in 1975 to allow the cloture vote requirement to be 3/5s instead of 2/3rds. Again, the nuclear option lowers the cloture threshold to a simple majority. To Socrative we go after the kids start the day off with a quick reading. I ask the kids...
We can even take a look at how effective it has been... After we are done reviewing the role of debate in the upper chamber, we are going to try something a little bit different. I am going to start the kids off by following the lead of another awesome government teacher I've been in contact with... we'll try a fantasy Congress. I will have the kids draw four members of Congress, either Senate or Congress. The kids will track their member of Congress for the remainder of the Congress unit for introduced legislation. Using Congress.gov, students can track their four members for legislative action. They get the following points:
Using the Senate Reference Page, students get
On the Congressional Record, students get:
On radio/television talk shows, students get:
The kids have two weeks to run their fantasy Congress activity, and get to report back to me prior to the test. The person with the most fantasy points gets ten extra credit points; second place 7 extra credit points, and third gets 5 extra credit points for the test. After we are done with that, I am going to round it out with vetoes... I am going to have to dip back into my Student Constitutions and look at what the FF say about this (Article 1 Section 7... there is a great article on vetoes here.) I love this chart that gives us a description of POTUS vetoes... And my bud HHH is here to help with that... And you know what? Here is what I think is lacking in the world. Infographics. Twice I have searched for infographics that condence information like Congressional leadership or classes of vetoes... and twice I have come up dry. I think I smell a project brewing in the background. An infographic project? Software to make these things is free...
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Jen's bookshelf: nerdcation
I want to start by thanking Mr. Snowden and Mr. Greenwald for their uncompromising dedication to giving the NSA violations air time and transparency.
I wanted to share some of the most important things I have learned from this book bef...
tagged:
nerdcation
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
AuthorI lovgov. LOVE IT! I love teaching government, learning about it, debating, discussing, asking questions about government. And not the standard boiler plate questions, but the hard ones that are NOT in the books. Archives
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