About this tool
First Reading
What First Reading is
First Reading is a civic education tool built specifically for Oklahoma high school students. It makes active Oklahoma legislation readable, researchable, and actionable — without telling students what to think.
The name comes from legislative procedure: a bill’s “first reading” is its formal introduction to a chamber. It’s the moment a proposal enters the public record. This tool treats that moment as an invitation to learn.
How it works
First Reading walks students through three steps:
- Browse bills — Search and filter active Oklahoma House and Senate bills by keyword or topic.
- Research — Read a plain- language summary and search Google for news coverage and policy analysis.
- Contact — Find your specific representative by address and open your email client with a pre-addressed message. You write the message — the tool just helps you get there.
Pedagogical philosophy
Students deserve to understand the values embedded in the tools they use.
- —AI as educator, not agent. AI is used to make bills readable — plain-language summaries that help students understand what legislation actually does. It is never used to draft messages to officials. Students write their own words.
- —Capacity, not shortcuts. The tool builds civic capacity. It helps students understand legislation and practice the skill of contacting a representative — not substitute for it.
- —Political accessibility. This tool serves students across the full political spectrum. Summaries and questions are written to be neutral — they describe what a bill does, not whether it’s good or bad.
Data sources
- —Legislative data: Bill text, status, sponsors, and history come from the Open States API, which aggregates official state legislature data.
- —Research: The research page links to a Google search pre-seeded with the bill title and identifier, so students can find news coverage and policy analysis across the web.
- —AI summaries: Plain-language bill summaries are generated by Groq AI using the Llama 3.3 70B model. All AI output is for educational scaffolding only.
Privacy
First Reading collects no user data.
- —No accounts. No login. No tracking cookies.
- —Name and email entered on the contact page exist only in your browser and are cleared when you leave the page.
- —No analytics that identify individual users.
About Broadsheet Educational Tools
First Reading is part of Broadsheet Educational Tools, built by a Title I high school US History teacher.
The guiding values are simple: transparency over neutrality and access over restriction. Civic education should be honest about its choices, and it should be available to students regardless of where they go to school or what their families can afford.