Explanation of Policy/Speech Lesson

In AP Government, we spent the first 3 weeks of the second semester learning about public policy. We focused on foreign policy, health care, environment, social security and welfare more generally, and a bit on education. Students wrote policy position papers individually and then "advised" the president (me). In our pretend presidential administration, I played the first female elected to the office and I was an Independent who favored more Libertarian impulses on foreign policy, but was Green and Progressive in social and domestic affairs. The students then worked together to write collectively a State of the Union speech (we watched, analyzed and discussed President Bush's final State of the Union in order to understand how to write our own). The students learned both about policy and about how maddening and rewarding the policy-making process (and the communication process) can be! They learned that at times they had to compromise their ideas and ideals with one another's and with mine, but that always they had to speak forcefully for their well-informed ideas.

The State of the Union follows!

Dr. Berry