Unit Web Activity
Unit 1: Introduction to Law and the Legal
Someone Ought to Do Something!
This lesson is designed to help students use the Internet
to find and study advocacy groups. They will learn to appreciate
the various viewpoints on an issue and will have the opportunity
to become involved as an advocate for an issue, if they so
Correlation to Textbook
This lesson correlates to Unit 1, Chapter 3: Advocacy in the
Street Law textbook.
Correlation to the National Standards
for Civics and Government
V.E.3. Forms of political participation: Students should be
able to evaluate, take, and defend positions about the means
that citizens should use to monitor and influence the formation
and implementation of public policy.
At the conclusion of this lesson, students will be
- Find advocacy groups on the Internet.
- Research to determine with which advocacy groups they
- Define the term amicus brief.
- Describe the process of joining an amicus brief to the
- Explain several ways to contact their national, state,
and local elected representatives.
- Apply the information they have gathered in this lesson
to participate in citizen advocacy.
Before You Teach This Lesson
- Before you take your students to the computer lab or
assign this lesson for independent research, review it yourself
to make sure that it suits your purposes and that all the
- The lesson points students in three different directions
to provide examples of a variety of ways that they may become
citizen advocates. Decide if you want to designate one path
for your students to follow or if you want your students
to choose one or more paths.
- If you want an issues-based outcome,
the first activity is the best option. Students may
search for and link to advocacy groups on all sides
of “hot” issues, including Abortion and
Birth Control, Gun Control, Tobacco, Energy, the Environment,
and the Death Penalty.
- If you want your students to understand how advocacy
groups and individuals use the justice system to advocate
for their views, as well as the role that amicus briefs
play in the court system, choose the second activity.
It points students toward two liberal and two conservative
groups that use the courts to advocate for citizens.
It also uses the recent Supreme Court cases involving
the University of Michigan law school and undergraduate
admissions policies to familiarize students with amicus
- Finally, if you want your students to contact their
elected representatives to advocate on any issue, there
are links provided to both the U.S. House of Representatives
and Senate, as well as to all fifty state legislatures.
- Teachers should note that it is difficult
to locate who has submitted amicus briefs by using the Supreme
Court’s Web site. Therefore, you may want to encourage
the students to approach the problem from the direction
of the advocacy groups, rather than tracking backward from
the Supreme Court case.
- Review the lesson outcomes with the students.
- If a Resource Person is helping to co-teach this lesson,
introduce him or her and explain how you will work together.
- Assign students either to follow the path you selected
or their own interests and then have them begin the lesson.
Stress to them that if they are going to become citizen
advocates, they must be knowledgeable about their subjects.
If they are not, the people they are trying to influence
will not take them seriously.
- When students have completed their research, have them
choose one of the options in the last activity, “Take
Action.” Each action requires students to write a
letter, either to you or to someone else. If the letters
are addressed to a legislator or outside group, encourage
students to mail them. They might get a favorable answer,
and this will start the students on their paths toward citizen
Suggestions for Using Resource
- Contact the elected representatives for your school’s
legislative district to co-teach this lesson and to speak
about what impact constituent mail has on their work.
- Contact representatives from a local advocacy group to
co-teach this lesson and to speak about how they advocate
to government agencies. Some of the same links that the
students follow in this lesson will lead you toward local
chapters of the groups in your area.
Timing of Lesson
The timing of this lesson depends on which path you choose
for your students to follow. You can complete this lesson
in one 45-minute class period. If you want students to follow
more than one path, you should allow extra time.