Hello colleagues, During a US presidential election year, it is common for teachers to make the election the focus of instruction. Reading about and discussing the election is a great way to build learners' knowledge about the way our government works and to help learners deepen their understanding of civic responsibility. Some teachers even have students engage in mock debates and mock elections, activities that can support students to enhance their listening and speaking skills and critical thinking and academic language.
For many reasons, I think we can all agree that this year's contentious presidential election is --to say the least-- trickier than usual to navigate. I'm wondering what other teachers are thinking about this issue. Have you approached this subject with students? Do you plan to? Do you have concerns? What kind of activities do you plan to include?
There is a great blog, "For Teachers, Election 2016 is Fraught," on Education Week about the unique challenges of this year's presidential election. The site also includes links to a number of excellent resources for teaching the election.
Looking forward to teachers' thoughts on this important topic.
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, College and Career Standards CoP
Comments
Contensious elections are not new to our country. Rather than focusing on the current election, I suggest teaching a bit of our history. Thomas Jefferson ran against John Adams and they fought over high-stakes issues; taxes, states' rights and foreign policy alignments. (Sounds pretty familiar?) The drama of selecting the Vice President led to the passage of the 12th amendemnt. The point is that our history has had controversial elections since, well - since we have had elections. Rather than focusing only on this election due to it's extreme complexity - I might shift the focus to historic elections and then move students through the process and end with the current election.
Colleagues,
The Electoral College system is complicated, but below are two links to short, entertaining videos that make it a little easier to understand for students and teachers. I have also included links to two voting game websites. I haven't tried the games so, if you try them, let us know what you think.
1) Electing a US President in Plain English https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok_VQ8I7g6I&feature=youtu.be A 3+ minute entertaining video that explains the electoral college in plain English
2) How the Electoral College Works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUS9mM8Xbbw&feature=youtu.be A 4+ minute, fast-talking video that covers more information and a few more complications. There is also a second part that focuses on the problems with the Electoral College.
3) Two web-based voting games, Cast Your Vote, https://www.icivics.org/games/cast-your-vote and Win the White House, https://www.brainpop.com/games/winthewhitehouse/
These were chosen from 8 websites suggested by K-8 technology maven, Jacqui Murray, but selected by me.
David J. Rosen
djrosen123@gmail.com
Thanks for these helpful resources, David. They will be quite useful for intermediate and advanced classes. I'm looking for materials for beginners, so if anyone has suggestions, please pass them along. I may be developing my own materials.
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, AELL CoP
Susan and others,
The World Education New England Literacy Resource Center Voter Education and Registration and Action Campaign (VERA) has worked with an organization called ethepeople.org (no typo in that web address, it's not We the People ) to create an online voter guide based on the questions of adult basic skills students throughout New England. Six questions they asked candidates are available here. The VERA website says their guide will be available at the end of September.
David J. Rosen
djrosen123@gmail.com
Thanks, David, for noting our efforts to compile teaching materials for our Voter Education, Registration, and Action (VERA) initiative. In addition to the online voter guide, we have a page of Classroom Resources that we welcome all to use, and we also compile numbers from program-based voter registration drives so that we can let state legislators know that adult students vote!
One point about the online voter guide . . . we're not getting a very strong response rate from the candidates. So we're going to use this as a teachable moment and post a lesson plan aimed at helping students communicate to legislators that they expect their participation!
Andy Nash, NELRC Director
Thanks, Kathy and David, for these suggestions. There are certainly aspects of the electoral process as well as the history and critical importance of elections that can be brought to the classroom. Read Works is another good source of articles that are organized by level. To access the articles on Read Works requires registration, but the materials are free.
Looking forward to hearing more about how teachers are considering engaging learners in this year's election.
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, AELL CoP