Passing a Bill

Sometimes lessons surprise me.  I could spend tons of time on a lesson and have it fail while others times the simplest lesson could have the greatest impact on students.  This is how I felt about this lesson on British Columbia's government: Passing a Bill.

The original lesson was based on a simple, faded photocopied document which challenged students to place events sequentially.  The graininess of the document and the lack of additional information made it difficult; but due to the nature of the high energy class, I improvised and assigned students roles based on the characters portrayed in the document (e.g. some MLAs and members of the public).  We created rough tableaus and I took these images and bolstered the quality of the original photocopy with the newly created, personal images.



For the followup class, I gave the students some more substantial notes then had them take the image tableaus and paste them in order (as per the original exercise) onto a specially prepared note sheet.  Sometimes old ideas work well, but they often require some major enhancements.

Resources:

• How a Bill Becomes Law in BC
• Discover Your Legislature [answers]
• Our Country, Our Parliament