ERC Week 3

A rhyming title to start the post!  I can already tell this lesson will be doubly beneficial, because not only will I tackle the Common Core part of it, but I am doing presentations at Capital University Center next week and SIRS Issues Researcher is one of the databases I cover, so this will be a good review.

I saw the Common Core Correlations tab at the top right away when I got into SIRS Issues Researcher.  How great is that!  Gun control is always a hot issue to be debated, even more so with recent happenings.  I think I will use this in my presentations at CUC next week, and relate it to SD by highlighting the School Sentinel Bill (HB 1087) that is currently making its' way through the SD Legislature. 

I am looking at the College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading, Writing and Speaking and Listening.  This lesson is going to be for a 11th grade class.  They will use this database to gather information for their projects on gun control.  They will be able to look at articles, websites, etc from the database and determine the relevancy of the information to how they are presenting their argument (pro vs. con).  For a listening exercise, I'm going to have them listen to the committee and floor debates on HB1087.  Prior to listening, their group will have chosen whether they are a proponent of the legislation or an opponent, and then they will listen closely to those sides.  They will then write their argument and as a group present it to the class, citing general information gleaned from the database and more specific arguments from committee and floor debate. 

Who knows, I may even make them present it as if they were legislators on the House or Senate floor.  I think this would be a fun one!  Who wants to sign on?