Plato Courseware, Unit Activity: Regulations

Unit Activity

Unit: Regulations

This activity will help you meet these educational goals:

• You will evaluate actions or events; determine when an explanation matches textual evidence; analyze an author’s point of view on a historical event by assessing the author’s claims, reasoning, and evidence; analyze and evaluate multiple sources of information in diverse formats (such as knowledge articles and videos) to address a problem; evaluate an author’s premises, claims, and evidence by validating or challenging them with other information; integrate information from diverse sources to show a clear understanding of an idea or event; and read and comprehend level-appropriate texts independently and proficiently.
• You will write precise claims, establish their significance, and distinguish them from other or opposing claims; write supporting paragraphs that develop claims while pointing out their strengths and limitations; and write in a style and tone that are appropriate for the discipline for which you are writing.
• You will write supporting paragraphs about a topic that provide researched and relevant facts, details, and examples and write using language that is specific to the topic yet accessible to readers.
• You will produce clear writing that is appropriate to the task, purpose, and audience and draw evidence from literary texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
• You will make sense of problems and solve them and attend to precision.

Introduction

Today’s economy is more globalized than ever. With international trade being more frequent and easier today than in decades past, the number of trade agreements that countries enter into is ever increasing. The United States is no exception.

In this activity, you will analyze one trade agreement that exists between the United States and another country or countries. You may need to do some research online. Be sure to document any sites you use in the Resources section at the end of this activity.

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Directionsand Analysis

Task 1: Researching Today’s Trade Agreements

The International Trade Administration (ITA) is a division of the US Department of Commerce that focuses on the nation’s trade issues and helps companies do business in and with other countries. The ITA website contains a wide variety of information on issues related to international trade. Read about the free trade agreements the United States has with other countries and answer the questions that follow.

1. Choose a trade agreement that the US currently has with another country that you would like to learn more about. Which country and trade agreement did you choose?

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1. If you haven’t already, click the link for the webpage of the potential agreement you selected, and navigate through it to answer the remaining questions. You may have to go to other websites to find some information. If so, be sure to cite your source in your response .List five main points of this agreement.

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1. What are the major regions and industries that the agreement addresses?

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1. What are some of the current tariffs or barriers to trade?

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1. How will consumers benefit from this trade agreement?

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1. Conduct some research on the origins of this agreement. Were any Congress members particularly for this agreement? If so, who and why?

Type your response here:

1. Were any Congress members against this agreement? If so, who and why?

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1. How might this agreement benefit the US economy overall?

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1. How might this agreement benefit people in your state specifically?

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Task 2: Presenting Your View

Imagine that this agreement is still being negotiated. In this task, you will create a presentation to your Congress member to encourage him or her to support passage of this trade agreement. Include these elements in your presentation:

• an overview of the potential agreement
• major regions and industries that would be positively affected
• tariffs or barriers to trade in place before the execution of this agreement
• how consumers will benefit from this trade agreement
• at least two other Congress members or industry leaders who might bein support of this agreement and why
• at least one Congress member or industry who might be against this agreement and why
• how this agreement will benefit the US economy overall
• how people in your state specifically will benefit from this agreement

Keep these criteria in mind as you create your presentation:

• Create at least 12 slides, including one title slide and one slide listing works cited.
• Write the information on the slides in your own words except when using direct quotes.
• Include relevant and appropriate graphics on your slides.

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Resources

Document any references you used for this project below. At minimum, include a title and URL for any Internet resource:

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Evaluation

Your teacher will use this rubric to evaluate the completeness of your work as well as the clarity of thinking you exhibit.