Legal Studies – Australian context – Analysing criminal legal issues

Warm up worksheet – labelling cognitive verbs {Infer, Discuss, Interpret, Decide, Recommend, Apply, Select, Define}.

Handout – a series of sources about a break in to a business (Jb Hi Fi) – newspaper article, crime scene photograph, extract from Criminal Code Act 1989, a criminal history, victim impact statement, interview transcript & textbook excerpt. It includes a retrieval chart for planning a response to an extended response exam question.

A PowerPoint which I think Legal Studies / Civics teachers will find helpful. If you use it, and like it, please give me a positive star rating / review. It begins with a discussion of the criteria being assessed in their exam and what it means to ‘analyse’ and ‘evaluate’ in legal studies. Students are taught what to look for to determine the ‘nature’ and ‘scope’ of a legal issues. They are shown what a source might look like in their exam. As a class we go through the sources and complete the graphic organiser. Following this the structure for an extended response is explained. Students must write their response and if it is not completed in the lesson, it becomes homework.

NB: My lessons have been designed for use in Australian classrooms and will often feature examples from Queensland legislation.