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To choose which laws, Supreme Court cases and functions of the government I would focus on for my benchmark, I thought about what my current situation, and also which laws will have an effect on me later in life. For example, I wrote about the healthcare law. One aspect of the healthcare law that is important to me is the fact that I am eligible to stay on my mom's healthcare until I am 26. Rather than focusing on working to afford my healthcare in college, I can focus on my school work.
Selecting my topics was a fairly difficult process. It was difficult to find relative laws and cases that are applicable to my life. The older I get, the way the government is involved in my life changes - it's hard to say whether or not they are more involved because it is involved in different ways. Up until the age of 18, the government can force you to go to school, and they have passed laws recently regulating what I can eat in schools. Before 18 they are trying to protect you. After 18 their primary interest is the rest of the country. They take more taxes to help provide for people who are less fortunate, and they require to do things such as register for selective service in the need of a draft. 

We learned about pen tool today.
Green
1-20-11 11:33am

 

There is no doubt in my mind that my life will be more affected by the government as I get older. In only a few months, I’ll be legally responsible for myself, and that will apply a new set of laws to me. In years, I will be buying a house, or paying bills, or getting married and all of those actions involve the government.

This project has helped me realize that the government does not only affect those that vote for the officials. I’ve always known that the government interacts with each citizen in many ways, but this project has helped me pinpoint specific laws, offices, and court cases that affect me personally.  

    For this project we needed to find 2 positive and 2 negatives for each the executive, legislative, and judicial branch. When it came to finding and choosing the 12 different laws, cases, or offices I tried thinking of things that affected my life the most. Since I am under 18, finding laws that had age limits on them were easy for me to use.
    This project was both easy and difficult. The easiest part was finding which laws, cases, or offices I wanted to use. The difficult part was turning what I found into paragraphs. Sometimes it's hard to explain what you want to say and that's what I was having trouble with. Another difficult part was finding items that affect me now instead of in the future. As I get older I believe that the government will have more of an affect on me because there will be more laws, court cases, and offices out there. Since I'm still in my teen years, I don't believe the government affects me as much as it would later on in life.

 

Una vez había perro. Vestía un suéter de color marrón. Caminaba en medio de la calle. El perro estaba sonriendo. El perro iba a una fiesta con sus otros amigos. En la fiesta ellos iban a cantar y ladrido. Él estaba muy nervioso por lo que el perro estaba practicando sus ladridos.

Click here to view published google doc.  

​My Law Benchmark

My Reflection:

Voice thread link : http://voicethread.com/share/1673275/
I chose my 12 cases by observing the ones I learned in class and was most familiar with however I noticed that alot of my peers were doing the same thing so I decided to pick at least 3 laws that my classmates did not choose. I thought it would get boring reading the same ones over and over when grading. The process however was somewhat easy , except for the struggle I had when trying to find out when and where a case may have specifically happened.
In hindsight , I can envision my life being more impacted by the government the older I get because more responsibilities come up and laws are always attached to responsibilities.
I enjoyed learning about why my family and I have to follow certain rules .

LINK

The hardest part of this benchmark was finding specific laws/bills that were directly related to me. I had to take almost all of my examples from topics dealing with education because that is the largest part of my life which is controlled by the government. If I were eighteen instead of seventeen, this project would have proven a lot easier because it wouldn't take as long to find bill and laws that directly affect me. The older one gets, the more affects the government has on their every day life. A large part of this is because the older we get, the more we contribute to "the machine" as citizens; our largest votes are made with our wallets. I would like to analyze corporations roles in the United States government because they have so much power of everything that gets decided.

I don't really understand how to put it all in that one group so here's mine:
Parent's Right To Know Act

 

Reflection:

 

            Choosing the items in my 12 identified laws, cases and offices was such a strenuous process. When first introduced to this assignment, I didn’t think as much thought and researching would be needed to complete the project. After researching just about all there is to know about the executive, legislative and judicial branches, I eventually came across some items that spoke directly to me. One court case that spoke directly to my life was the West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette case. Being raised with different religious views as most of my classmates, I was always looked upon awkwardly when refusing to say the pledge of allegiance. My friends never really understood why I didn’t say it, and to tell you the truth, I was never 100 sure why I didn’t say it. I just knew I respected my mother’s wishes. Because of this law, I am not forced to go against my religion by reciting the pledge of allegiance. The overall process of finding which items to include allowed me to learn more about the government, in depth, and really put into perspective which laws, cases and offices pertained to my life.

 

The difficulties with this project came with the research. I would have never guessed finding court cases relating to me would be as strenuous as it was. When I thought I’d found a case, it didn’t directly relate to my life. There were always things I could relate to as oppose to me relating to them currently. The less difficult aspect of this process was finding things that negatively affected my life. I found that when speaking of the negatives, everything I felt came easier to me making it easier for me to write and express myself.

 

As I mature and become older with age,, I would anticipate my life being more affected by the government. Since there are so many restraints set for children under the age of 18, as I pass the ages at which limitations are set, I will be more likely to part take in government activities. With age comes opportunity. The opportunities presented to me, the more likely it is for me to take advantage of those opportunities. This process has taught me so much about the world around me I hadn’t before known. Forced to research all aspects of the three branches of government, I now have a broader understanding of how I, as well as the world around me, is governed.  I understand that laws are set forth for the welfare of this country, and that all three branches do whatever in its power to protect that. 

Link to my Benchmark

The way I went about deciding what were my items were going to be was based on what I do everyday. It wasn’t hard figuring our what impacts my life because I thought about what I do and what governmental links it has. After choosing my twelve topics, finding out information was not hard at all. This process what not hard at all. The only thing that seemed to be hard was finding out ways that the topics were negative when they are made to be positive. After reviewing all the topics and seeing how they directly affect my life I noticed that as I get older this will effect me more along with other laws as well. Because I am a minor today it will be less likely that more laws apply to me instead of for me. For example, I am my parents responsibility until I turn 18.

This is my first attempt to drawing my hand.