Daily Learning Contract
- Topic: Career Opportunities
- Objective: Students will identify career opportunities within one or more career clusters using evidence from Career Opportunities.
- TEKS: d(1)(C)
- Demonstration of Learning: Town plan, completed problem table, two drafted ordinances, one revision, and one specific Law and Public Safety worker connected to the ordinance process.
Lesson Overview
| Time | 50 minutes |
| Objectives | Describe what a city council member does; design a town and scan it for problems; draft two ordinances that are clear, fair, and realistic; peer-review a partner's laws and revise one |
| TEKS | d(1)(C) |
| 5E Phases | Engage: Warm-Up · Explain: City council role and ordinance rules · Explore: Town design, problem scan, and law drafting · Evaluate: Peer review of laws and Exit Ticket |
| Deliverable | Town plan + completed problem table + two drafted ordinances + one revision + one career-role connection |
| Materials | Find Your Future workbook pp. 40-43, printed City Council Town and Ordinance Plan, pencils or colored pencils, projector |
Warm-Up (5 min)
WARM-UP: Name one rule in your neighborhood or your city that you would change, and one you would add. Who actually gets to make that decision?
Take 2-3 responses. Students will usually name the mayor or police. Add city council members, who write local ordinances, then give each student that role for the town they design today.
Activity 1: Learn About the Role (7 min)
Source: (FYF p. 40: "City Council in Action", Step 1)
Open the workbook to page 40. City council members are elected leaders who make decisions for their town or city. One of their main jobs is creating and voting on local laws, called ordinances. Read the workbook's three example decisions aloud and ask the class to guess which way a council would vote on each:
- Community spaces: Can the new skatepark stay open until 10 PM, or does it have to close at sunset?
- Public safety: What is the speed limit in front of the middle school? Are electric scooters allowed on the sidewalks?
- Business rules: Where are food trucks allowed to park, and what kind of permits do they need?
The workbook makes the point that council members do not guess what people want. They hold public meetings and listen: residents complaining about dangerous potholes, students asking for a new basketball court. Then they debate and solve.
Post the workbook's three tests for a strong law where students can see them all period. A strong law is clear so people understand it, fair so it applies equally to everyone, and realistic so it can actually be enforced.
Pre-teach three legal terms in 60 seconds using the vocabulary list from the overview: ordinance, which students use today; due process and probable cause, which return in tomorrow's legal review. Students write all three on a vocabulary card they keep for Day 4.
Facilitation Tip
The skatepark-hours question usually splits the room. Let students argue it for 30 seconds, then point back to the three tests they must use to settle the ordinance: clear, fair, and enforceable.
Activity 2: Design Your Town, Find the Problems, Write the Laws (30 min)
Source: (FYF pp. 41-42: "City Council in Action", Steps 2-4)
Step 2: Design Your Town (10 min). Students write or sketch a basic plan for their town on page 41 or on chart paper. The workbook asks six questions:
- What type of town is it? A busy city, a rural community, a beach town, a growing suburb?
- What is the weather and climate? Humid rainforest, hot and dry desert, snowy mountains?
- How do people get from one place to another? Public transportation, snowmobiles, cars, walkways?
- What makes your town special?
- What types of jobs are available?
- What is the name of your town?
Step 3: Think Ahead, What Could Go Wrong? (8 min). Students fill in the workbook's problem table (FYF p. 42) with at least one possible problem per row. The workbook's own examples: a snowy town has to keep the roads clear, and a beach town has to keep trash from building up on the sand.
| Area | Possible Problems |
|---|---|
| Safety (crime, accidents, etc.) | |
| Climate, Weather, and Environment | |
| Transportation | |
| Other (come up with your own idea) |
Step 4: Create Your Town Laws (12 min). Students draft two ordinances that solve problems they just named. Each law answers the workbook's three questions on page 42:
- What is the law?
- Why is this law needed?
- What happens if someone breaks the law?
Every law gets checked against the three tests from Activity 1 before it counts as a draft.
Active Monitoring: Walk the room three times, once per step. Lap 1 target: every town has a name, a climate, and a stated way people get around. Lap 2 target: all four rows of the problem table are filled. Lap 3 target: both laws carry a what, a why, and a consequence. Two misconceptions to have an answer ready for: a "law" written as a wish ("everyone should be nice at the skatepark") rather than a rule, and a consequence nobody could actually enforce. If most students miss the lap 2 target, stop and model one problem row on the projector rather than coaching desk by desk.
DOK 3: Two of your laws could conflict with each other. Pick one law you wrote and name a group in your town it would be hardest on. Would you change the law, or keep it and explain why the cost is worth it?
Facilitation Tip
Students who cannot start the town plan almost always need one constraint instead of six questions. Give them the climate and let them build outward, because the climate generates the problems and the problems generate the laws. A town with no climate produces two laws about phones at school.
Activity 3: Review the Laws (5 min)
Source: (FYF p. 43: "City Council in Action", Step 5 and Class Discussion)
Council members review and improve proposed laws before anyone votes. Students trade drafts with a partner and take turns working the workbook's four review questions:
- Is the law clear and easy to understand?
- Is the law fair for everyone in the town?
- Does the law address the problem effectively?
- Is anything unclear, missing, or unrealistic?
Each student then uses the feedback to improve one law and records what changed on page 43.
Class Discussion. Close with the workbook's prompts: what was the hardest part of writing laws that are fair and realistic for everyone? How did your partner's feedback change your idea? Which of your laws would be difficult to enforce in a real town, and why?
Exit Ticket (3 min)
EXIT TICKET (Decision Tree / Branching Prompt) · Printable PDF:
The name of my town: _____
My Law #1, in one sentence: _____________
Step 1: A resident breaks Law #1 for the first time. What does my law say happens?
Step 2: Branch on fairness.
IF the resident did not know the law existed, what should the council do next? _____________
IF the resident knew the law and broke it anyway, what should the council do next? _____________
Step 3: One legal or public safety career that would have to help enforce my law, and what that person would do:
Career: _____
What they do: _________
(d(1)(C))
Submit your town plan and both drafted laws with this ticket.
Differentiation
- Support: Provide a town-plan template with the six Design Your Town questions already printed and one problem row filled in as a model. Sentence frames for the law drafts: "In the town of _, no one may because __. Anyone who breaks this law must _____."
- Extension: Students who finish early draft a third law that would be genuinely unpopular but necessary (a water restriction, a curfew, a fee) and write two sentences on how they would explain it at a public meeting. A second option: play an iCivics government game ("Counties Work" or "Do I Have a Right?") and compare the decisions the game forces to the laws they just drafted.
- ELL: Pre-teach: Ordinance = Ordenanza, Council = Concejo, Law = Ley, Fair = Justo, Enforce = Hacer cumplir, Problem = Problema. Allow students to sketch the town instead of writing it and to draft laws in Spanish first. The workbook page reads above grade level, so read the Step 1 role description aloud.