Lesson Plan Template

Name: Sean Harkness Class/Subject: 6th Grade World History Electoral College Date: 10/29/2012 Student Objectives/Student Outcomes: The students will be able to understand the meaning and importance of civic duty and what duties they can take part in in order to benefit their community. Through a group activity, the students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of the Electoral College and use critical thinking in making positive changes to it. Content Standards: 14.C.2 Describe and evaluate why rights and responsibilities are important to the individual 14.B.2 Explain what government does at local, state and national levels. 14.F.2 Identify consistencies and inconsistencies between expressed United States political traditions and ideas and actual practices (e.g. rights).

Materials/Resources/Technology: Pantheon Board PowerPoint School House Rock YouTube Clip Worksheet Teachers Goals: To demonstrate the importance of the Electoral College and civic duty. To cultivate critical thinking by providing the students with a worksheet that challenges them to improve our current electoral system. Time
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Start of Class: Warm-up Worksheet for the week. The days word will be civic duty - We will as a class read the definition and discuss it - The students will then come up with synonyms/examples - The class will then develop a sentence that incorporates the word, while also shows that they understand the definition - Finally, the students will provide an illustration that also shows the understanding of the word

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Introduction of Lesson: We will state the objective of the lesson and that we will be covering: the importance of continual civic engagement in your community, state, and country, the history of the Electoral College and how it was developed the workings of the Electoral College locally and nationally and why it is correct and incorrect. We will also let the students know how they are going to be able to apply it. *Start PowerPoint Lesson Instruction: Using the PowerPoint and video clips we will present the information about the Electoral College including its history, the reasons to vote, and how it works at the local and national level. To begin the presentation, we will discuss civic duty and what it incorporates. This will allow the students to relate what they know about civic duty to the lesson as well as give them a basis for the explanation of the Electoral College and how civic duty and the Electoral College are related. To help reinforce the major elements of the Electoral College, we will show a School House Rock video on YouTube that is linked to the presentation. The presentation is interactive so that the students will be able to discuss what they are learning, connect the material to their lives and prior knowledge, as well as answer questions about the material. Once the presentation has concluded we will explain the purpose of the worksheet and break the students up into groups so that they can complete it while collaborating with their peers. The purpose of the worksheet is to challenge the students to both demonstrate their understanding of the Electoral College and civic duty but also to use critical thinking in creating a better system and giving justification as to why they made those changes. Assessments/Checks for Understanding: The assessment will consist of breaking up into 6 or 8 groups depending on The size of the class. They will then create their own electoral system in these groups. They will then analyze their system based on questions on the worksheet. The questions will be: - Will you have an age requirement? Why? - Does every persons vote count equally? Why? - What does your vote count towards, popular vote or electoral vote? - How is your electoral system different than the current one? Closure/Wrap-Up/Review: Bring back to a class discussion on their own electoral systems and critique it as an entire class. Then we will discuss if this is better or worse than the Electoral College. Self-Assessment: N/A

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