Lessons
One period each. Grade 7 and up.
Every lesson has the same parts: objectives and standards, student readings built on the record, an independent assignment, a teacher's guide, and a printable student handout. The figures are regenerated from the public record and dated, and each lesson below carries the date its own figures were generated.
How a week runs
- This week's record 3 bills from 2 of the six legislators the board follows, Oct 19 to 25. Built Monday, October 26. Open the board
- One lesson Pick one below, or run the same one with a new week's record. Each is one period and comes with a handout. Pick a lesson
- Every weekday after Each group's class page updates every weekday morning and the board every Monday; the lessons stay. Come back and read what each group's three did since. Set up your groups
Which badge opens which lesson
Each group earns badges from what the three it kept actually did. A badge is not a reward at the end, it is the way in: the badge names the lesson that explains what the group just saw happen on the record.
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First Move How a bill starts
Where every bill begins, and how few get any further.
One of the three this group kept had an action on a bill they sponsor, after the group chose them.
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Hearing Held What a hearing is for
Most hearings are not about a bill at all, so what does it mean when one is.
A committee hearing listed on the record of a bill from the three this group kept, after the group chose them. Committees also hold hearings on topics with no bill listed; those do not count.
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Out of Committee Who holds the gavel
What separates the bills a committee reports from the ones it never takes up.
A bill from the three this group kept was reported out of committee, after the group chose them.
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Roll Call Reading a roll call
A recorded vote is the exception, and the page tells you more than the result.
A recorded vote, where every member's yes or no is on the record, on a bill from the three this group kept, after the group chose them. Any recorded vote counts, not only the final one.
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Cleared a Chamber The floor: how a bill gets a vote
Which road the bill took to a vote, and who controlled that road.
A bill from the three this group kept passed its own chamber, after the group chose them. Most bills never do.
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Both Chambers Two chambers, one text
Whether both chambers passed the same words, and what happens when they did not.
A bill from the three this group kept passed both the House and the Senate, after the group chose them.
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Signed into Law One in how many?
How rare this is, worked from the counts rather than taken on trust.
A bill from the three this group kept became law, after the group chose them. About one bill in forty ever does, so most groups will see this one stay grey.
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Reaches Across the Aisle Cosponsors and coalitions
Whether support from the other party moves a bill, or shows up on bills already moving.
The three this group kept gained 10 new cosponsors from the other party, after the group chose them.
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All Three Active A legislator's week
How much of the job never reaches the record at all.
In one week, every one of the three this group kept had an action on a bill they sponsor.
- Who holds the gavel Why almost every bill dies in committee, and what separates the ones that get out. Cross-party cosponsors, the chair, and a bill to trace to the action where it stopped.
- One in how many? How many bills become law, worked from the count itself across six finished Congresses, and why the one sitting now has no rate yet. Ends by checking a published claim.
- What a hearing is for Most hearings are not tied to a bill. What it means when a bill does get one, who gets one more often, and who actually sits at the witness table, with a real hearing to sort.
- Reading a roll call Most laws pass with no name-by-name vote at all. How to read the page when there is one, three real votes to compare, and how to find your own legislator on it.
- How a bill starts From the hopper to a committee: who can introduce a bill, what the number and the cosponsor list tell you, and what happens next to most bills. Two real bills that started the same way.
- The floor: how a bill gets a vote Getting out of committee does not put a bill on the floor. The roads a bill takes to pass a chamber, who controls each one, and why most bills that pass never have a close vote.
- Cosponsors and coalitions Who signs on to a bill, and when. What the record says about bills with support from both parties, and why it cannot say which came first: the support or the progress.
- Two chambers, one text A bill must pass the House and the Senate word for word. Three real bills across the Capitol, and why one that passed both still did not become law.
- A legislator's week What a legislator does all week, and how little of it shows on the record of their own bills. Read your school's Three against the numbers.
- Two kinds of measures Eight prefixes, two kinds. Which measures can become law, which never can, what the others are for, and how to tell from the prefix alone.
More lessons follow the same shape as the record supplies them. A teacher who wants a lesson on a particular part of the record can say so from the About page.