The recent speech by president Obama about his new executive actions on immigration provided a great opportunity to discuss and debate the issue in class this week. Before diving into the discussion, we started by watching the speech in class, then reviewed the Newsela article "Obama's Immigration Speech, Cheered By Immigrants, Angers Congress."
Beyond having a class discussion about the merits of Obama's immigration plan, I also wanted to have the students debate whether or not the president's proposed executive actions are constitutional. Since this issue can get incredibly complicated, I created this brief video explaining the key points for each side of the issue.
The class discussions went well and I am very proud that the students stuck to arguments and justifications based more upon facts than feelings. I understand how emotionally charged the immigration issue can be, so having Freshman students discuss this at such a high level was just awesome. Feel free to use this video if you think it will help your students as well!
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