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Trust for Representative Democracy

America's Legislators Back to School Week

Return to: Lesson Plans--High School, Middle School, Elementary School

Middle School Lesson Plan VIII - Debriefing the Visit: A Legislator Resume

Introduction

As a class assessment and to debrief the legislator classroom visit, students review previous lessons and demonstrate greater depth of understanding about the responsibilities of state legislators. Students again complete the survey from Lesson 2, Do You Trust Your Government? They compare responses with earlier survey results. Working in groups, students develop a resume for the legislator who visited their class. To develop the resume, students review the previous lessons by reexamining the special legislator briefcase developed in Lesson 1, Getting to Know You, and the legislator's personal calendar from Lesson 5, A Day in the Life.

Objectives:

At the conclusion of this activity, students will be able to:

• develop a legislator resume using knowledge about the legislator and legislative process gained in previous lessons;
• synthesize information about the legislative process.

Materials:

• Handout # 2, Do You Trust Your Government?
• Student surveys from Lesson 2, Do You Trust Your Government?
• Student illustrations of legislator's briefcase from Lesson 1, Getting to Know You
• Student illustrations of personal calendars from Lesson 5, A Day in the Life
• poster paper, markers

Teaching Time:

Procedure:

1. To begin this assessment activity, duplicate and distribute survey, Do You Trust Your Government? (Handout #2). Ask students to fill out the survey again. When finished, pass back the survey students completed in Lesson 2. Students should compare their responses with those given earlier. Conduct a class discussion in which students point out changes in their knowledge and attitudes about state government. Encourage students to cite specific insights about state government gained from learning about and interacting with their state legislator.
2. For the next part of the activity, allow students to work with one partner. Explain that working in pairs, students will develop a special resume for the legislator who visited their class.
3. Review with students the content and purpose of a resume. Discuss possible categories usually included in a resume (i.e., background, work experiences, special skills, accomplishments, and references.) Although experts consider a one page resume as an ideal, for the purpose of this assessment, student-created legislator resumes should be two or three pages in length.
4. For this debriefing activity, students will need all of the materials and products they developed in earlier lessons. To help students begin to compile a first draft of their legislator resume and to provide some direction for students, tell them to consider all that they have learned about their legislator and the legislative process from the previous activities and by interacting with the guest legislator: For example:

• Ask them to reexamine the information sheet completed by the legislator and the illustrations of the legislator's "briefcase" students created earlier in Lesson 1, Getting to Know You.
• What experiences and skills might a legislator need to address the public's general level of trust about our government? Students should use the pre and post survey, Do You Trust Your Government?
• Review what they have learned about a typical day by reflecting on what they learned by examining the legislator's personal calendar studied in Lesson 5, A Day in the Life.
• What skills were needed to complete the Venn Diagram in Lesson 4 , What Is Public Policy? What skills were needed in the public hearing simulation in Lesson 6 and in the legislator's in-basket in Lesson 7?
• Would students consider being a reference on their legislator's resume? Why or why not?

5. Close the lesson by asking students to write individual thank-you letters to the state legislator who visited their class. Their letters must include at least three specific ideas students learned about or gained new information about as a result of his/her visit to class. At the teacher's and legislator's discretion, student-developed legislator resumes could be included with students' thank-you letters.

Alternatively, teachers may choose to write a group thank-you letter for the entire class to sign. Teachers should ask the class to agree upon three specific ideas they gained more information about as a result of the legislator visiting and teaching their class. Select a range of student-created legislator resumes to include with the class thank-you letter.

This project is supported by a Robert H. Michel Civic Education Grant sponsored by The Dirksen Congressional Center, Pekin, IL.

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