Government · Week 7 · Institutions, Courts, and Federalism
How a Bill Really Becomes Law
Following a bill through committee, compromise, and vote, and practicing the give and take that turns a group idea into a shared plan.
- Students will
- Students trace how a bill moves through committee, floor votes in both houses, and the president, and evaluate the purposes served by these procedures for making government decisions.
- SEL skill
- Offer a compromise that gives something to each side of a group plan
- What it looks like
- Students practice the cooperation and compromise that turn a group idea into a shared plan.
- Content focus
- How a bill really becomes law
- Format
- Small group problem-solving
Relationship skills
Relationship skills are the ways you communicate, listen, cooperate, and work through disagreements to build and keep healthy relationships. More relationship skills activities
What you get
A teacher guide with what to say, step by step, plus student pages and a supports page for students with diverse learning needs, including those with IEPs. Print or Project it, or assign it in Google Forms and Google Docs for Google Classroom. Your first 10 activities are free.
Standards
- 12.4.1: CA History Social Science Content Standard, Grade 12: Principles of American Democracy (standard 12.4, item 1)
- CA HSS Analysis Skill: CST2 Analyze how change happens at different rates at different times, and how it affects values and beliefs as well as technology and politics. (Chronological and Spatial Thinking)
- C3 Framework (national): D2.Civ.11.9-12 Evaluate different procedures for making government decisions in terms of the civic purposes they achieve.
- Literacy in history: RH.11-12.3 Analyze a series of events and determine whether earlier events caused later ones.
Fits these textbook chapters
- Government Alive! Power, Politics, and You, Chapter 11: Lawmakers and Legislatures
- Government Alive! Power, Politics, and You, Chapter 12: Congressional Lawmaking
- United States Government and Civics, Chapter 5: The Structure of Congress
- United States Government and Civics, Chapter 6: Congressional Powers
- United States Government and Civics, Chapter 7: Congress at Work
- Magruder's American Government, Chapter 10: Congress
- Magruder's American Government, Chapter 11: Powers of Congress
- Magruder's American Government, Chapter 12: Congress in Action
Textbook names are used only to help you find activities that fit what you teach. RoseThread Connect is not affiliated with these publishers.
More relationship skills activities for Government
- Rights That Belong to Everyone Relationship skillsExamining the freedoms in the Bill of Rights and practicing how to speak up for a right while listening closely to someone who interprets it differently.
- Democracy Compared Relationship skillsComparing how civil society works under constitutional democracies and authoritarian regimes, and practicing the respectful disagreement that free societies depend on.
- Gratitude for a Shared Republic Relationship skillsStudents write thank you notes to a classmate who disagreed with them respectfully and to a person who serves the community.
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RoseThread Connect activities are drafted with the help of AI and shaped by educators. Students never have to share anything personal. Our five SEL skills are informed by CASEL's SEL Framework; RoseThread Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.