Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write a 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Supreme Court Nominee Faces Tough Questions, 01/09/06
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june06/alito_1-09.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What does the Supreme Court do?

2. What are some laws that impact your life?

3. What qualities are important for a Supreme Court Justice?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. Who is facing a confirmation hearing this week? Who might this person replace and what topics are expected to come up for discussion?

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito will face tough questions about abortion and presidential power when the Senate begins a week of confirmation hearings Monday.

The Senate is considering President Bush's choice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor as one of nine judges on the highest court in the land.

2. What comparisons are being made between this nomination and the recent nomination of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts?

However, unlike Judge John Roberts who sailed through confirmation hearings last year, Judge Alito will face a more skeptical Senate Judiciary Committee.

Questioning of Alito is expected to be more heated than at Roberts' confirmation hearings because more is at stake.

If confirmed, Alito would replace Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, who announced her intention to retire last year once someone else fills her seat on the bench.

O'Conner is often referred to as the court's "swing vote" because her decision determined the outcome in many 5-4 decisions.

3. What is Roe v. Wade and how do many Democrats and abortion rights supporters feel Judge Alito could impact it?

Democrats and abortion rights supporters say that if Alito makes it to the Supreme Court he will help reverse the principles of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

"I don't think we've come by a nominee for the Supreme Court, certainly, who has stated things so directly and boldly and even talked about a strategy as a way of overturning Roe v. Wade," said Senate Democrat Charles Schumer, a member of the Judiciary Committee.

4. Why is the issue of wiretaps important to the nomination? What arguments do Alito supporters make about this issue?

In 1984, Alito wrote a memo saying that a White House official who authorized illegal wiretaps of U.S. citizens could not be sued. This is an issue of particular interest given the recent revelation that President Bush authorized wiretaps without a warrant in order to track potential terrorists.

But Alito's supporters say that at the time, Alito was a lawyer advancing the position of his client, the conservative Reagan administration.

Those supporters say senators should instead look at how Alito ruled when he was a judge on a lower court.

5. What is Judge Alito's current job?

Alito is currently a judge on a federal appeals court - one step down from the U.S. Supreme Court. He has ruled on many cases.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Do you think Alito will be confirmed? Why or why not?

2. What are some issues that you predict the courts will have to deal with in the next decade or two?

3. Read, watch or listen to this NewsHour story about the past Supreme Court session:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june05/scotus_6-28.html

List the Supreme Court decisions mentioned. Write down whether you agree or disagree with each decision. There is no way to know exactly how Alito would have voted, but take a guess from what you've read so far. Would it have changed the final decision?

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.