The Process


           You will write a letter to a member of the Wisconsin legislature expressing your opinion about the death penalty in Wisconsin. Each of you is a constituent of one person in the Assembly and one person in the Senate. You will determine who the two people are who you could write to and the final choice is up to you. Once you've made that decision, you should look at some web sites to find some support for your opinion. You must describe two reasons for your opinion about the issue of capital punishment in Wisconsin, so you'll want to look for cases you could describe, statistics that back up your opinion, quotes that you could utilize, etc. Your finished product needs to be word processed and will be worth a total of 80 points toward your quarter grade. You may choose to send a copy of the letter to Madison and if you receive a response and bring it into class you will receive 5 extra credit points!!!!!!!!!
The sites provided when you click on the links below will certainly help you find some material to support your opinion, but you are certainly not limited to the links alone. Look for other materials available on the Web as well as in print. To review then, the steps you should follow are:
 
 
 
 

  1. Determine which legislators you may write to
  2. Investigate links for material supporting your opinion
  3. Look for additional supporting material
  4. Write business letter to legislator
  5. Hand in final draft of letter(mail copy of letter for extra credit)

 


Now it's time to begin!! Your first step is to determine who you will address your business letter to, remember each of you is represented by one member of the Wisconsin Assembly and one member of the Wisconsin Senate. You may choose whichever person you prefer to write to. In order to figure out who your Assemblyman and Senator is connect to the Wisconsin Legislature homepage and select the "Who is my Legislator?" link - you may also get further info about each person by investigating the legislature's site further.

 The Wisconsin Legislature

Congratulations! Now you know who you're writing to, so it's time to seek support for your opinion.

Remember that you want to fully explain two reasons for your opinion about capital punishment in Wisconsin. Your letter is meant to be subjective, that is one-sided, so seek out material that will help you to write a persuasive letter. By this point, you should have a good idea of the two reasons you are going to use in defending your opinion. The following links contain lots of good material, some of them are more one-sided than others, so investigate several in order to discover material you can utilize. Remember too that you're not limited to these online sources alone - use other info you discover online and use print material as well!!(Reminder - part of the assignment requires you to provide a works cited list of at least 5 sources, so keep track of those sources you use)