Name:

Letter to a Local Leader

Improving Our Communities Date:

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.
We are the ones weve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
- President Barack Obama

Goal: Engage in and improve your local community.

Role: You are an empowered and engaged citizen

that thinks critically about their communities and
how they can be improved. You will need to think
like a geographer read and create maps, describe
locations using geographic terms, and ask
geographical questions!

Audience: Local policy-maker that can impact your community and the problem that you identify.
This could be a local Councilmember, Superintendent of Schools, Mayor, Representative,
or many others.

Situation: Local policy makers are always interested in what their constituents (people they
represent) have to say! As a student in the area, you have a unique perspective to identify
problems that impact you and your peers and propose a solution.

Product: You will write at least a 3-paragraph letter to a policy-maker that outlines the issue you
identified and proposes a solution to the problem.

Standard/Scoring: Criterion D:Thinking Critically

Criterion D: Thinking Critically

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

i. identifies in detail the main i. Identifies the main point of

i. identifies the main points of i. Identifies some main points
points of ideas, events, visual ideas, events, visual
ideas, events, visual of ideas, events, visual
representations, or representation, or arguments
representations, or arguments representation, or arguments
arguments to a limited extent
ii. uses information to give ii. Uses information to give
ii. uses information to give ii. uses information to give
substantial opinions adequate opinions
detailed opinions limited opinions