More than just a bill

Deirdre Newman

For the 30-something set, it was Schoolhouse Rock that

entertainingly informed them how a bill becomes a law -- “I’m just a

bill, Yes, I’m only a bill, And I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill,”

sung with feeling by an animated bill as it started the grueling,

time-consuming process of becoming a law.

For seniors at Newport Harbor High School, a keyboard and a mouse

are all they need to examine the intricacies of how the federal

legislature works.

On Friday, students in Jim Crotwell’s American government class

went online to find a recent bill passed by Congress and a

constitutional amendment voted on by Congress.

The goal was for students to work on their own to find real-world

examples of what they were learning about in school.

“Hopefully most everything I do teaches them to find information

and answer questions and not rely on me to give them a

fill-in-the-blank,” Crotwell said.

The first unit of Crotwell’s class is devoted to the Constitution

and how the federal government is set up. In addition to asking

students to find out information, Crotwell also asked them to judge

the Web sites they used based on their reliability.

Using search sites such as About.com, Crotwell’s students quarried

the vast amount of bills accessible online and examined their

purpose.

Taylor Garnier, 17, was intrigued by one called Aimee’s Law, which

was drafted to keep sex offenders and murderers in prison, after a

Pennsylvania college student named Aimee Willard was killed by a

murderer paroled from a Nevada prison.

Taylor said the assignment was useful because of its practicality.

“It helps you figure out how bills become laws and all the things

you have to go through to get a bill passed.”

Alexis McKenzie, 17, said the assignment enabled her to get a more

in-depth feel of what Congress has been up to lately.

“It gives you more insight to what’s going on in the government

for those who don’t know what’s going on,” Alexis said. “It makes you

more aware.”

Crotwell said he was impressed with his students’ online

sleuthing, especially since this was the first time they had been in

the computer lab this year. The follow-up to this assignment will be

a Socratic seminar, where students engage in a graded discussion on

Congress, constitutional amendments and the different branches of the

government.

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot

education writer Deirdre Newman visits a campus in the Newport-Mesa

area and writes about her experience.