13.5 the Election LESSON PLAN

American Government – February 19, 2015 13.5 – The Election – LESSON PLAN

Objectives: 1. Students will evaluate the importance of presidential primaries. 2. Students will define basic terms to aid them in their understanding of American Government. 3. Students will explain the Framers’ original provisions for choosing the President. 4. Students will understand the function of the Electoral College today.

Bellwork: Prepare to present speech.

Objective 1:

Activity 1: Mock Presidential Primary

Review assignment form Thursday Purpose: Hold a mock presidential primary. Activity: 1. Each group needs to choose one of you members to be a presidential hopeful for the upcoming presidential primary. 2. Work together to develop a platform, prepare a speech, and create campaign posters and buttons to promote their candidate. Assignment: Presidential candidates from each group will present a speech that announces your candidacy, outlines your platform, and persuades others to nominate you as the party’s presidential nominee. Roles: Presidential candidate, campaign manager, speechwriter, slogan developer

Presentation and voting process  Hand out a rubric to each group o Write names of members and name of assignment  Groups presidential nominee will present speech to the class o Each presentation will be filmed and shown to other government classes to be voted on.  All government classes will vote on candidates from each class  Groups will be graded on how will they companioned for their classroom presidential primary.

Objective 2:

Activity 2: Vocabulary

 Introduce the Vocabulary Worksheet that will be used to memorize words in the Political Dictionary at the beginning of each section. o Label the vocab. sheet 13.3

Presidential electors Electoral votes Electoral college

Objective 3/4:

Activity 3:

Introduce Original Provisions – pg 365 to 366  Skim and scan – read through and take notes  Discussion: o The Framers intended the presidential electors to be “the most enlightened and respectable citizens” in each State. What does the statement suggest about their definition of god citizenship?

Introduce The Electoral College Today – pg 377 to 379  Skim and scan – read through and take notes  Discussion: o How does the way the Electoral College functions today differ from the Framers’ intentions?

Introduce Flaws in the Electoral College – pg 379 to 382  Skim and scan – read through and take notes  Discussion: o What are the three main weaknesses of the Electoral College system?

Objective 4:

Activity 4:

Electoral College Map  Go online and find a map to show how many electoral vote each states has  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege2012.svg

Materials: 1. Copies of vocab. sheets 2. Video camera and tripod 3. Copies of voting ballots

Closure:

Homework:

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