Good morning students! This lesson involves pulling a lot of the work you've done as a candidate into one media product: Your web presence. Your slogan, your poster, and now your video ad will all be part of your web ad. I've given you a very simple HTML template to manage it all, which you can customize and expand according to your comfort and abilities with HTML. You'll need a place to host your poster image and a place to host your video - if this gives you trouble, I can definitely help. I would love to see some of your videos!

Here is the PDF for this week's lessons: Vote for Me! Week 5: Commercial Break

Media: Analyzing Different Types of Ads

We want our students to be able to hear or see a campaign commercial and really break it down into its components, understand the agenda behind it, and analyze the way its message is being formed. The goal here is to make wiser, more savvy voters who think critically about what they hear and see on the radio and on TV. When you’re watching television, watch the campaign ads and discuss. It’s not necessarily that important what’s right and wrong in the ads, but that the students are learning to think about *why* various decisions were made in the ad’s production and what effect the ads are having on them in ways they may not have noticed.

Film-making: Filming Your Campaign Ad

This should be fun, fun, fun! If the child ends up reading the speech instead of looking into the camera, fine! If they end up having a finished product that doesn’t live up to their expectations, just laugh, congratulate them on their first attempt, and move on. It’s all about the process — all the little decisions and plans and putting it all together. They’re putting themselves in the candidates’ shoes to see what it feels like to try and sell yourself to people you don’t know who will be judging you on all kinds of things like your hair and the photos on your desk.

History: Famous Political Ads Throughout TV History (Online)

Thinking: Spin Worksheet

The purpose of this worksheet is to encourage critical thinking, to help the students to see how a fact can be skewed in different directions, and to again lead them to be more savvy as they absorb messages in the media. While the facts they’ll be spinning aren’t necessarily political, they’re good practice. When you hear or see examples of spin in the media, you might want to point them out. They might also benefit from exposure to a “Crossfire” type show on television.

Computer Science: HTML Template for Online Ad

Here’s a bit of code for developing your online ads, if you’d like to do that.

Individual PDFs to download, in case you don't want the whole lesson:

Analyzing the Ads

Filming Your Campaign Ad

Spin Worksheet

HTML Template


Previous lessons:

Week 4: A Poster You Can Believe In
Week 3: The Platform and the Stump
Week 2: Unconventional Conventions
Week 1: Let's Get This Party Started
Prelude Class: What's an Election?

Download the whole unit so far: Vote for Me

Labels: elections, lessons, social studies, unit study, voteforme

Hi future politicians of this fine country! Is it just me or are you noticing the road sides covered with signs promoting the different candidates? Some of them just have the candidates' names, but some have slogans like "Peace, Prosperity, and Reform!" or "Yes We Can!". As we get closer and closer to Election Day, we will be seeing more and more of these posters, along with other graphics like t-shirts, bumper stickers, and campaign literature in our doorways, and we will be hearing slogans louder and louder. This week is about figuring out how these posters and slogans are made by making our own. As we notice what's happening around us, we'll be learning to analyze the messages we're receiving, and make sense of some of the visuals we encounter.

Here is the PDF for this week's lessons: Vote for Me! Week 4: A Poster You can Believe In

Graphic Design: Elements of a Good Poster
Here we examine campaign posters from various candidates to try and find the common elements and decide what makes a good poster. It is a great time to notice posters on the road side and compare and contrast the different decisions made by these various designers. Which ones can you read best? Which one on each corner draws your eye most effectively? If there’s any way you can get your hands on a wide variety of campaign material for them to examine and compare, that would really help.

Photography: Choosing a Good Image
This exercise will be lots of fun. The ultimate purpose is to have the students feel the pressure of expressing themselves through a facial expression, and understand better what the “real” candidates are going through as they pose for pictures. While it may seem superficial, a lot of time is spent on the candidate’s choices in wardrobe and hair and even the way they smile. The students will come away from this lesson with a better grasp of that.

Thinking: How Much Can You Remember?
This game demonstrates the need for slogans to be short in order to be memorable. However, the bonus section, where the students write their own gradually inflated slogans, can turn into a nice little grammar exercise too. Use all the opportunities when you see political slogans on TV or on posters around town to discuss how memorable they are, how effective they are, and what candidates they’re promoting.

Social Studies: Slogans Past and Present
Here’s a research exercise for the students, and an opportunity to develop their own slogans for their own campaigns. Whatever they come up with is great, though they should start being aware of how the slogans work as chants, how they look on a poster, whether they rhyme, and other rhetorical considerations. Again, finding real examples to look at will help.

Song: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too

Individual PDFs to download, in case you don't want the whole lesson:

Elements of a Good Poster

What Makes a Good Image

How Much Can You Remember?

Slogans Past and Present

Song: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too

That's it! A lot to digest. Some pretty heavy thinking and writing going on, but keep it personal, keep it meaningful, and have fun with it!

Previous lessons:
Week 3: The Platform and the Stump
Week 2: Unconventional Conventions
Week 1: Let's Get This Party Started
Prelude Class: What's an Election?

Labels: elections, lessons, social studies, unit study, voteforme

Hello candidates! Welcome to your campaign! Isn't this exciting? We have a little over fifty days left until the election, and things are rocking and rolling on the national scene. Now that we've had our conventions, it's time to hit the campaign trail. This week we'll be developing our platforms, polishing our stump speeches, and planning a five city tour of the country. If you live in an area where you can get out to see the "real" candidates doing their thing at a rally, that would be very cool! We've seen Barack Obama once, and yesterday we meet a candidate for Senate, former Virginia Governor Mark Warner. We hope to see Sarah Palin on September 18th too. I would love to have the kids see all the main candidates in person, so we'll see how that works out! I will tell you that it's worth the effort to get out and experience some of this stuff first hand -- they learn a lot just from what they absorb in the situation, and it's way easier to show them than to tell them. Have fun!

Here is the PDF for this week's lessons: Vote for Me! Week 3: The Platform and the Stump


Thinking: Building a Platform
It’s important here to accept and encourage any issues and ideas that are truly interesting and important to your student. My guess is that they will not come up with health care and foreign policy planks in their platforms. It’s important that they care about their own issues so that they can make good stump speeches.

Writing: Writing a Stump Speech
The stump speech is a very basic five paragraph essay. I don’t believe in teaching a five paragraph essay in which the first and last paragraphs are a summary of the middle three. The introduction should truly be an introduction, not just a preview. The conclusion should truly be a conclusion, not a recap. There are added considerations when writing a speech, such as writing a great opener and a great closer. The best way for students to intuitively understand how to do this is to listen to and read some great speeches, readily available online.

Public Speaking: Delivering Your Stump Speech
The students will create before/after videos (or just do before/after performances for a very local audience) and in between they’ll learn some rudimentary principles of public speaking. Remember to lead by example — exaggerate your dynamics, your gestures, and don’t be afraid to be silly in order to break the ice for shy speakers.

Social Studies: Out on the Stump
This activity could be as involved as you want it to be. You could stop with considering a great choice of five cities to visit, finding them on a map and leaving it there, or you could get as detailed as per diem food allowances and finding places to entertain VIP donors. Go wild!

Thinking: Campaign Promises
This is hard to do without bias, especially when it comes to giving examples. Use whatever you believe in your own family to illustrate this lesson. What I want the students to take away is the struggle each candidate faces between being realistic and honest and pleasing people. Whatever our politics, that dilemma is universal.

Individual PDFs to download, in case you don't want the whole lesson:

Building a Platform Worksheet

Writing a Stump Speech

Delivering a Stump Speech

Out on the Stump: Planning a Campaign Trip

Campaign Promises

That's it! A lot to digest. Some pretty heavy thinking and writing going on, but keep it personal, keep it meaningful, and have fun with it!

Previous lessons:
Week 2: Unconventional Conventions
Week 1: Let's Get This Party Started
Prelude Class: What's an Election?

OR you can download the entire thing so far here: Vote for Me!

Labels: elections, lessons, social studies, unit study, voteforme

Hello class members! Welcome to week 2 of our campaign! This week we are going to be learning the ins and outs of an introduction speech, the significance of the "running mate," and we're also going to be listening to and yelling political speeches and documenting our physical respones to these experiences. Getting through this material before the conventions get underway will help us understand what we're looking at when we watch the speeches on TV.

Here are some links that may be helpful as we contextualize the speeches and rituals at the conventions:

Famous Political Speeches, with text and audio.
Speeches from the Democratic National Convention, 2004.
Speeches from the Republican National Convention, 2004.

Here is the PDF for this week's lessons: Vote for Me! Week 2: Unconventional Conventions


Now that we’ve created our political parties, it’s time to throw a party. This week we’re getting ready to watch the real conventions on TV, so our purpose is to learn the vocabulary, become familiar with the different types of speeches, so that we will understand what we’re watching.

Read-Along Teach-Along Sheet: Political Conventions
There is a lot of information to pack in here and I glossed over some of the details of the nominating process in the interest of not overloading the students. When they watch the convention on TV and see each state’s delegation casting their votes, it will become more clear.

Writing and Reading: The “A Man Who” Speech
Beginning readers may not be able to wade through all of the two introductory speeches I linked to. If you are reading them aloud to your students, make sure to do it with high drama. After the students’ own introductions are written, have them practice introducing each other as well as being introduced. I purposefully made the format very short so that multiple ones could be written. Write an introductory speech for the dog. Write an introductory speech for Jack and Annie. Etc.

Science and Reading: The Physical Effects of Political Rhetoric
Here’s a miniature science project. This will be more interesting if the student delivers the speech at top volume with many gestures. Also, make sure the clapping and cheering during the listening segment is very enthusiastic and possibly even aerobic. Make sure you check your pulse and breathing rate when you're watching the keynote address in each convention. Who gets your pulse rate up higher?

Thinking Activity: Choosing a Running Mate
I had originally planned for siblings to be each other’s running mates, but I think now that it’s better if the students invent someone to fit the ticket. If your student has someone in mind that exists in real life, that would be cool too.

Art: How to Make a Duct Tape Hat
Make a tough, colorful, waterproof hat out of two rolls of duct tape! Wear it to watch the speeches on TV! This lesson is available online with how-to illustrations in the post previous to this one, or follow the link in the header.

Multimedia Assignment:
Watch the Conventions on TV!

Individual PDFs to download, in case you don't want the whole lesson:

Readalong Teachalong: Political Conventions

Writing and Reading: The "A Man Who" Speech

Science: The Physical Effects of Political Rhetoric: What a Feeling!

Thinking Activity: Choosing a Running Mate

Benny continues to blog his assignments. I'd love to hear from you and see how you're doing. Have a great week! To see all the lessons in this unit click here.

Labels: elections, lessons, social studies, unit study, voteforme

Welcome to the Vote for Me! Elections Unit Study week 1, in which we begin to develop our own campaigns! Last week was great. We figured out what the President does and learned a song naming all the Presidents. We learned about the reasons voting is useful, and about majority and minority. We learned about the electoral college and sang about it. We discussed voting rights and how our country's ideas of what is right have developed and changed over time. You can see last week's lesson here if you missed it. You're welcome to join in any time!

Here is the PDF for this week, containing the entire lesson:Vote for Me! Week 1: Let's Get This Party Started!

This week the fun really begins! As our students take their first steps toward defining themselves as candidates, we’ll need to be very positive and supportive of their ideas. Guide them toward understanding the process rather than focusing on specifics they’re coming up with. I guarantee that by the time they’re 35 and ready to be President, they will not still think that donuts are an important political issue.

Read-Along Teach-Along Sheet: Political Parties
It’s very hard to define the different political parties in a succinct way that’s both accurate and easily digestible by children. You may want to polish this section to suit your own tastes. My intention is to stay very positive about every candidate, every party. There are intelligent, honest, moral people in all parties. This is not a time for us to communicate our own possibly strong political opinions in a negative way, because we don’t want the children to be negative with each other when they’re campaigning. So, as hard as it may be for you to say nice things about a party to which you do not belong, suck it up!

Thinking Activity: Defining Your Issues and Priorities
A lot of the work we do during this class will involve introspection and self-analysis. We as teachers have to work with whatever comes out. If my student wants to start a bike-riding party, I’m going to have to use that to teach the ideas I want to teach him. This can become an interesting exercise, maybe the first time some of the younger kids have really asked themselves who they are and what they believe. We are not looking for “liberty” and “democracy” among their core values. We may be looking for freedom, but it may come out in the context of freedom to stay out after dark.

Creating a Political Party
Some questions to work through on page 1, and a kind of charter document to fill out on page 2.

Group Activity
This game will work best with more than one child, but can be done with one. Introduces the concept of facts vs. opinions, and gives the kids an active, non-verbal way to take a stand on issues.

Individual PDFs to download, in case you don't want the whole lesson:

Political Parties Readalong Teachalong

Defining Issues and Priorities Thinksheet

Inventing a Political Party Worksheet

The Opinions Game: Agree or Disagree?

I love hearing from students. Benny is blogging some of his efforts at his blog. Last week I particularly enjoyed hearing an MP3 of Phillip, who is five, singing himself to sleep with the Presidents song. Of course, he seems to be listing Jackson Pollack as every other president, but... it was very inspiring to hear that, nonetheless! Keep going!

This is the first week of Vote for Me! Elections Unit Study! For all classes to date, click the link.

Labels: elections, lessons, social studies, unit study, voteforme

Labels: elections, lessons, social studies, unit study, voteforme