Political Parties and Elections (Remix)

Created Jan. 24, 2024 by Charles Baumgardner

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

  • Identify the difference between the two major political parties in the United States along with distinguishing third parties
  • Understand how a debate works as well as a general election

Essential Question

What is the process in the United States that we use to elect officials?

Procedure:

  1. Day one: Explain our theme for the week
  • Discuss what a debate is and how it works. 
  • Our debate resolution will be “Which side will you vote for? Republican or Democrat”
  • One team will be persuading the class to vote “Republican” and the other team will be persuading the class to vote “Democrat”
  • Discuss the debate organization (See form).
  • Go over the Political Party vocabulary
  • Break up into debate groups.
  • Discuss possible assignments of group members. 
  • Each side will practice their own debate presentation on a given day. 
  • Research to establish some background knowledge 

Watch  videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok_VQ8I7g6I (4 min.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEmOUHxessE (9 min)

  1. Day two

Reading/Grammar- 

ReadWorks- Article a Day (http://digital.readworks.org/)

NEWSELA- Article (https://newsela.com/)

  • Research and plan for debate in groups or as individuals as needed.
  • Concentrate on the main reason for your side’s issue. You will meet with the teacher to share your main points/reasons. Be sure that you can provide facts/statistics in order to prove up each of your points. 

Resources: 

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Democrat_vs_Republican

http://www.enkivillage.com/differences-between-democrats-and-republicans.html

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/07/dnc_2016_10_big_ways_the_democratic_platform_diffe.html

http://www.republicanviews.org/differences-between-democrats-and-republicans/

  1. Day three

Reading/Grammar-

NEWSELA- Article (Read with your desk partner/partners)

(https://newsela.com/)

  • Continue your research over your issue.  Don’t forget to take notes and start to plan out your speech that you will give over your issue. 
  • Take notes on how to plan out your speech today
  1. Day four

Reading- 

  • You should be  at the least starting your speech today. Make sure you have facts and statistics that will add to the strength of your points. 
  • If you have your speech finalized then meet with the teacher to go over it.

Campaign Strategy: Watch following video

http://indiana.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/0d11fd81-20ba-4dc5-b328-870fe289c148/0d11fd81-20ba-4dc5-b328-870fe289c148/

  • As a group, come up with a slogan for your side and images that represent what you stand for (Republican or Democrat). You will use these to help you complete the following activities.
  • Use the following link or any website with political posters to get a visual of different posters.
  • Using your Campaign slogan to come up with a poster to support your side. Use the images you and your group came up with.

Poster: http://www.postermywall.com/index.php/g/campaign-posters

  • Radio Ad: Come up with a song, a rap, a jingle, or an advertisement that you can use to endorse your party. It needs to go along with the slogan your group came up with. 
  1. Day five

Reading-

Work on Speeches - you should be finishing up your planning and at the least starting your speech. Those of you that have your finished, you need to be practicing your speech and checking how long it is. You may have group members check your speech to see if it sounds good if you would like.

No research should be going on today. Everyone should be finishing speeches or practicing and memorizing.

Work in your small groups on your poster and radio ad. Don’t forget to use your slogan that your group came up with and the images that represent your side.

Each side will practice their own debate presentation on day six. The real debates will be on the days that follow.

Revision and Adaptation. Ferguson, Joe. "Election Unit". OER Commons. Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, 08 Jun. 2017. Web. 26 Nov. 2019. <https://www.oercommons.org/authoring/22354-election-unit>. License:  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States

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