American Citizenship Portfolio

Mr. BroxtermanAmerican Government

Description:This portfolio will be composed of two separate activities/projects that will be completed over the first two marking periods. You will be required to complete these projects on the assigned due dates.

Part One: Citizenship Examination-Due October,132006

Task: You will create a citizenship exam that addresses basic US history and civics information which you think are vital for every American citizen to know. This test will be your creation of an exam that already exists that is taken by individuals applying to become citizens of the United States.

Requirements:

Twenty question exam that addresses those basic ideas and history of US that every American citizen should know.
You must have ten people take your test and have their signatures on separate sheet of paper.
You will need to record your results in a table with names, questions #’s, and indicate whether they responded correctly or not.
You will need to create a bar graph that represents the question #’s and the total number correct and incorrect per question.

Evaluation of Results:

Please write and type a summary that answers the following questions:

It is essential that you provide specific examples from your test-

What impression do the test results give you about the American citizen’s knowledge of their country?
After seeing the results of your test, do you believe your test was too difficult or too easy? Please explain why.
Which area of history, civics, government or other did most of your questions focus? How do you think this impacted the results?
Why did your questions focus on the above specific area of study?
What changes would you make to your test?
How did any of your participants’ age, gender, education, or other factors impact your results?

Final Question-

Based on your test results, should every American be required to take a test to confirm their citizenship prior to graduating high school? Please explain why or why not.

Part Two: Community Service-Due January 5th, 2007

Description: You will be required to complete 10 hours of volunteer work somewhere in the community. This work must be completed outside of your home for no compensation. You will be asked to create a poster in order to represent the work completed.

Requirements:

Poster:

You will need a poster with pictures of you working. You should include captions for your pictures.
You should have a title for your poster.
You will need a description on the back of your poster that describes what you did during your community service.

Grading:

Each of these projects will be worth 100 points and will be graded for:

Overall Quality (neatness, organization, cover)-50 points

Thoughtfulness and detail of written portions of projects-30 points

Creativity-10 points

Grammar/Spelling-10points