America's Legislators Back to School Week
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Middle School Lesson Plan V - A Day in the Life
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Introduction
To learn about the legislative process, students will examine their legislator's personal calendar and consider the skills legislators use and the various activities that comprise a typical day. To prepare for this lesson, teachers need to ask the visiting state legislator to send several pages of his/her daytimer or personal calendar in advance and create transparencies for classroom use. Legislators should be encouraged to select a day that includes some of the following activities: dealing with constituent problems, listening to diverse points of view on a difficult issues, negotiating, compromising, decision-making, and balancing his/her personal and professional life with a legislative life.
Objectives:
At the conclusion of this activity, students should be able to:
- examine some of the daily activities of state legislators;
- hypothesize about the skills used by a state legislator;
- compare and contrast their views about the work of legislators with the real life experience of a state legislator.
Teaching Time:
one class period
Materials:
- poster paper, markers
- transparency made from legislator's daytimer or personal calendar
Procedure:
- Begin by asking students to consider what activities make up a typical school day for them. A summer day? A weekend day?
- Ask students to explain what a daytimer or personal calendar looks like. What purpose does a daytimer or personal calendar have? Perhaps students are familiar with daytimers as a method of keeping track of homework assignments, tests, long-range projects, field trips, and other school related activities. Ask students what a stranger could learn about them by looking at their personal calendar? What insights can be gleaned about their life by looking at a "typical" school day? What insights can you make about the work of your parents by examining their daytimers?
- Post the chart below on the chalkboard, poster paper or transparency. Have students list what they KNOW about a legislators day in the first column; what they WANT to know in the second column.
- Explain to students that the guest legislator has sent several pages from his/her daytimer to class. Pass out copies of the legislator's sample daytimer pages. Have students examine it in small groups and make a list of some of the things they did not think of that actually make up a legislator's day.
- As a class, the teacher will lead a discussion over the items learned about the legislator's day and list the responses on the chart in the LEARNED column.
- To close this lesson, explain to students that early in our nation's history, the demands on state governments were not great. Citizen-legislators could leave their jobs for a few weeks each year to participate in legislative sessions in their state's capital. These citizen-legislators had other jobs in their home communities. Today, the work of a state legislator is far more complex and many state legislators are actually full time lawmakers. Many have college degrees in political science, law, or public administration and plan on a full time career in politics. Ask the students to make a list of job skills the legislator must have. Have them write a classified ad for the position of state legislator. Share the ads with the legislator during their visit and ask the legislator to comment on the accuracy of the job description.
This project is supported by a Robert H. Michel Civic Education Grant sponsored by The Dirksen Congressional Center, Pekin, IL.
Posted 9/13/01
Updated 9/19/02
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