Departments : Teaching Day-by-Day :
Teaching Day-by-Day: Election 2004
Every vote counts!
- Week One
- Take a vote in class today. Math or English first this morning? Which snack – popcorn or Oreos? Is it okay if one person gets 10 ballots and everyone else has just one – or none at all? Describe and discuss a time in history when that was the case – Egypt under the Pharaohs, Meiji Japan, etc.
- Take another vote. Before counting the ballots, throw away the votes of all the students wearing denim. Ask the disenfranchised students how they felt about this. Look up these amendments to the Constitution: 15th (all races); 19th (women); 24th (abolition of the poll tax).
- Read the Pledge. Give students a copy of the Pledge of Allegiance and read it carefully with them. As you discuss it, examine the deeper meanings of the patriot's vocabulary: allegiance, republic, indivisible, liberty, justice.
- Are you qualified? Who can be president of the United States? (Qualifications to run for president: a U.S. citizen by birth, a resident of the U.S. for at least 14 years and age 35 or older.) Do students think the U.S. will have a woman president soon?
- Who are the presidential candidates in 2004? What would students like to know about each of them? Who are the candidates for vice president? Split students into four groups and make short "baseball card" biographies of each person, with a photo clipped from a magazine.
Week Two
- Who gets to vote in the United States? List with your students the qualifications for voting: U.S. citizenship, 18 years or older and good citizen (non-criminal) status. Also, you must register with the local Board of Elections. Why are secret ballots important?
- Collect campaign items for a bulletin board. You'll enjoy a bright display of bumper stickers, brochures, campaign badges, signs, etc. Examine symbols, colors and slogans for the messages they send.
- Obtain a sample ballot. Review the races and propositions. What other officials, besides the president, are up for election and what are the responsibilities of these offices? Explain to students the roles of Senators and Representatives.
- Where do they stand? Looking back at last night's presidential debate, choose just one issue on which your students can examine the candidates' claims. What do they promise? What have they done in the past? Good choices: homeland safety, education or medical care.
- Show the class the 1874 Thomas Nast cartoon "Third Term Panic," which deals with opposition to a third term for Ulysses S. Grant and popularized Nast's symbols for the Democratic and Republican parties. What mascot would students choose if they were forming a third party?
- "Democracy." Study the history and key terms (polis, agora, Pericles, ostracism, strategos, assembly) relating to civic responsibilities and voting procedures in the first democracy, that of ancient Athens.
- Draw a neighborhood map with polling places brightly indicated. Teach geographic constructs on your map: compass rose, legend, scale. Each student takes home a smaller street map illustrating his or her family's polling place.
Week Three
- Take a "Sign Walk." Look at yard signs, billboards and bumper stickers, if your school is located near major cross streets. Discuss the colors and the slogans used by candidates. Ask students to watch part or all of the final presidential debate.
- Ask students to tell the class about any TV, newspaper or radio ads they know of related to the ongoing election campaigns. Bring in examples of political ads from newspapers and magazines. Point out that candidates have to raise a lot of money to pay for media ads.
- The Federal Election Commission tracks voter participation by age and locale. Look up statistics from the presidential election of 2000 online. Who votes the most? The least? In which states? (Most: Minnesota, 68.8% of eligible voters; Least: Hawaii, 40.5% of eligible voters )
- For homework, ask students to ask their parents if they know where their local polling place is and if they're planning to vote. What percentage are planning to vote? What percentage are not?
- Doorknob flyers. Create flyers that include the percentage of your state's potential voters who actually cast ballots in the 2000 election, as well as local polling places and hours. If your principal approves, students can hang the flyers on their neighbors' doorknobs.
- Follow one small, local race. Invite the candidates to speak in your classroom. Cut out articles about the race throughout the rest of October and invite the winner to a November victory party catered by your class.
- Ask students what public issues they are most concerned about. What would their slogans be if they ran for public office? (Historical examples: "I Like Ike," "A Full Dinner Pail," "Not Just Peanuts" and "Vote Yourself a Farm.")
Week Four
- Assign political book reports on past presidents, using appropriate books from your library or from the annual lists of Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People, published by National Council for the Social Studies (www.socialstudies.org/resources/notable)
- Daily presidential campaign update. Assign your students class days on which they will report on the events of the day before. Encourage parents and families to help in the preparation of the news
report. - Study elections similar to that of 2004. There were eight 20th century re-election races for Republican presidential incumbents; five times, the Republican President was re-elected (example: Eisenhower) and three times, he was not (example: Hoover).
- Several states run student straw polls, usually through their Secretary of State offices. Students can cast ballots in the Student-Parent Mock Election on October 28. Students in Kids Voting USA communities can go with their parents to the polls and vote in special ballot boxes.
- Penny politics. American coins are revealing artifacts about our society. Hand out pennies to students and ask them what archaeologists might think of us as a country a thousand years from now, if they unearthed an American penny.
- Discuss the terms liberty, e pluribus unum, In God We Trust.
- Make a list of every American president whose likeness appears on an American coin or bill. What do your students think these presidents did to deserve this honor? Students should then find out facts about these president's lives and accomplishments.
Week Five
- Presidential portraits. The White House gallery is available online and some teaching supply stores carry portraits of the presidents, too. As you review faces, introduce one important fact about each presidency you discuss.
- Inaugural addresses. Read one of the great ones: Lincoln's second inaugural ("With malice toward none, with charity for all"), FDR's first ("The only thing we have to fear is fear itself") and Kennedy's ("Ask not what your country can do for you").
- Have a class discussion on what it means to win gracefully. How does a good sport behave after winning a game? What does it mean to lose gracefully? How does a good sport behave after losing? How do students expect the winning and losing presidential candidates to behave?
- Give students electoral vote maps, which they'll color in as the returns come in – red for Republican victories and blue for Democratic ones. They should fill in the correct number of electoral votes. Have a class discussion about the Electoral College system.
- Make a Take-Home Voting Craft to remind families to vote on November 2. Beaded safety pin flags, pencil "Vote!" pendants and "Your Polling Place" colored bookmarks are possibilities.
The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) is the nation's largest association of social studies teachers. NCSS publishes a K-6 journal, Social Studies and the Young Learner and an annual list of Notable Social Studies Trade Books. A middle school supplement is also sent to all NCSS members (see www.socialstudies.org/membership). NCSS Board member Syd Golston is the author of this calendar.
