Summer Institute Civically Engaged, Environmentally Literate July 8-11, 2013
How to become familiar with the story
What do you remember?
Consider breaking into 6 groups to read the statements and tell the whole group about the witness using “I” statements to personalize the information,
e.g. “my name is Casey Perez and I am Mia’s parent ...”
Using the six groups, ask one person to be the lawyer and all the rest will be the witness or one person can be the witness and all the rest are lawyers who ask direct questions.
Demonstrate other strategies to remember the testimony:
Paragraph by paragraph: pair and share what information you found
What questions would you ask yourself? (the witness statement you read)
A mini-role play of your witness using the emotion appropriate to your role. DO NOT ADD NOR SUBTRACT from the witness statement.
Write a headline which briefly describes your testimony.
How would your testimony add to your side of the case? Support the charges or the defense case?
What is the weakest part of the testimony?
Choose one other witness who connects best to your own testimony and explain or explain why you are different form the other witnesses on your side.
Draw one thing from your testimony that represents an important fact and explain it to the class, e.g. medical release form (chart pack and marker).
If you could be any witness, who would you choose and why?
Use 3 X 5 cards with one word on them to place in a pile under the witness’ name.
2
Hearing question: When considering the role of a citizen in the United States today,
· what responsibilities, if any, does a citizen have for promoting sound political, social and environmental policies?
· what responsibilities, if any, does a citizen have to protect the rights of others, whether or not his or her own rights are endangered? - Center for Civic Education, 2003 State Hearing Question Unit 6, Q2 (modified)