Inquiry (5E) Lesson Plan

Teachers: Subject:
Megan Harmon Social Studies
Common Core State Standards:
● Civics: C3-An understanding of civic and political institutions in society and the principles these institutions are
intended to reflect including knowledge about law, politics, and government are essential to effective
citizenship.
● ISTE-3a-Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for
their intellectual or creative pursuits.
Objective (Explicit):
● By the end of the lesson, students will draw the process of how a law is passed with 80% accuracy.
Evidence of Mastery (Measurable):
◻ Include a copy of the lesson assessment.
◻ Provide exemplar student responses with the level of detail you expect to see.
◻ Assign value to each portion of the response.

Students will complete and turn in the attached chain of events worksheets.

Sub-objectives, SWBAT (Sequenced from basic to complex):

◻ How will you review past learning and make connections to previous lessons?
◻ What skills and content are needed to ultimately master this lesson objective?
◻ How is this objective relevant to students, their lives, and/or the real world?
Review of the three branches of government to introduce how laws are created and the role of each branch in the
lawmaking process. This is relevant as students will need to understand their role as citizens regarding laws.

Key vocabulary: Materials:

● Whips-an official of a political party whose task is to ● Chain of events worksheet
ensure party discipline in a legislature. ● Laptops
● Constituents-a voting member of a community or
organization and has the power to appoint or elect
● Clean bill-After a committee has amended
legislation, the chairman may be authorized by the
panel to assemble the changes and what remains
unchanged from the original bill and then
reintroduce everything as a clean bill
● Caucus-a closed meeting of a group of persons
belonging to the same political party or faction
usually to select candidates or to decide on policy
● Filibuster-Informal term for any attempt to block or
delay Senate action on a bill or other matter by
debating it at length, by offering numerous
procedural motions, or by any other delaying or
obstructive actions
● Quorum-The minimum number of voting members
that must be in attendance at a meeting of an
organization for that meeting to be regularly
constituted
● Roll call vote-A vote in which each senator votes
"yea" or "nay" as his or her name is called, the
names of senators voting on each side are
recorded. Under the Constitution, a roll call vote
must be held if demanded by one-fifth of a quorum
of senators present, a minimum of 11
Engage
◻ How will you activate student interest?
 ◻ How will you hook student attention?
◻ What questions will you pose, based on your objective, that students will seek to answer in Explore?

Teacher Will: Show “I’m Just a Bill” video clip Student Will: Watch the video and take notes on how a
Question-How is a bill made into law? bill goes through the three branches of government.
Explore
◻ How will model your performance expectations? Remember, you are not modeling what you want students to discover but
need to model expected behavior or required procedures.
◻ How will students take the lead and actively use materials to discover information that will help them answer the question
posed in Engage?
◻ What questions or prompts will you be prepared to use with students while they are “exploring”?
Teacher Will: Demonstrate how to search for the first Student Will: Research and explain the steps of how a
step of the bill from the video “how an idea becomes a bill becomes a law
bill”
Co-Teaching Strategy
◻ What co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
◻ What accommodations/modifications will you provide for specific students?
◻ How will you anticipate students that need an additional challenge?
Students will work with partners
Explain
◻ How will all students have an opportunity to share what they discovered?
◻ How will you connect student discoveries to correct content terms/explanations?
◻ How will all students articulate/demonstrate a clear and correct understanding of the sub-objectives by answering the
question from Engage before moving on?
Teacher Will: Student Will:
Evaluate the information students have gained. Share within table groups the information that was
Students should have gained knowledge on the specific found in their research.
steps oh how a bill becomes a law.
Co-Teaching Strategy
◻ What co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
◻ What accommodations/modifications will you provide for specific students?
◻ How will you anticipate students that need an additional challenge?
Provide the list of steps for the student to research
Elaborate
◻ How will students take the learning from Explore and Explain and apply it to a new circumstance or explore a particular
aspect of this learning at a deep level?
◻ How will students use higher order thinking at this stage? (e.g. A common practice in this section is to pose a “what If
question”)
◻ How will all students articulate how their understanding has changed or been solidified?
Teacher Will: Pose the question: how does a bill fail? Student Will:
Discuss how a bill can fail within their groups.
Co-Teaching Strategy
◻ What co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
◻ What accommodations/modifications will you provide for specific students?
◻ How will you anticipate students that need an additional challenge?
Students will disucuss within a group how a bill can fail.
For an additional challenge students can search for bills that have failed.
Evaluate
◻ How will all students demonstrate mastery of the lesson objective (though perhaps not mastery of the Elaborate content)?
◻ How will students have an opportunity to summarize the big concepts they learned (separate from the assessment)?
Teacher Will: Check for understanding while students Student Will: Complete the worksheet demonstrating
are completing the worksheet the flow of how a bill becomes a law
Co-Teaching Strategy
◻ What co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
◻ What accommodations/modifications will you provide for specific students?
◻ How will you anticipate students that need an additional challenge?
Students will work as a pair to complete the graphic organizer