GOALS & OBJECTIVES
- Students will understand how a Two Party System developed in America.
- How does a Representational Democracy function differently than a Direct Democracy?
- Why do Americans feel like their vote does not matter?
- What are the benefits and drawback of a Two Party System?
CONTENT & COMMON CORE STANDARDS
- Analyze the origin, development, and role of political parties, noting those occasional periods in which there was only one major party or were more than two major parties.
- CC Reading 11-12.3 Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain.
LESSON INTRODUCTION (HOOK/ACCESS PRIOR KNOWLEDGE)
To get students warmed up to the idea of political parties, I will have the class get together into four groups. Students will start to bounce idea between one another about what they remember happening recently about the President, Democrats, and Republicans. Each thing they share with their group, one student will write it down on a piece of paper. After five minutes, I will call back the students’ attention and ask each group what were some things they thought. This will show me what the student already knew about America’s present political landscape and will help refresh the memories of students who are less informed.
VOCABULARY (CONTENT LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT)
Democracy – Direct Democracy – Representational Republic – Dual Citizenship
CONTENT DELIVERY (METHOD OF INSTRUCTION)
Once I have an idea of what students are aware of in America’s modern political landscape, I will begin my lecture on political parties. This digital presentation is a fourteen slide PowerPoint accompanied by various multimedia and guided notes. Each slide has highlighted and underlined material to signify importance to the student. While they are filling out their guided notes, one half of the page will have all the writing from the slide and the other will be blank writing lines. The blank lines are for student to write down commentary and reference words to help them remember the details in my lecture, along with any questions students might ask throughout the presentation. They are allotted this flexibility because all the material from the slides is already on the notes. In order to keep their attention, however, certain parts have been left blank for them to fill in as each slide is presented. Complementing the written content on each slide are various reference images, such as pictures, political comics, data charts, a map, and even a video component. The guided note pages will have a clearing in the middle so that they may draw those images for their own use. As the presentation progresses, so auxiliary concepts are included to give students insight and promote conversation. First, I show them the breakdown of America’s political parties from the beginning of the Constitution to modern day. Second, the lecture explains how Third Party elements have made for unruly elections. Both of these concepts help to setup the lectures interactive section, as I prompt students to think critically on these developments in American politics. There are three discussion areas through the lecture and nine questions to promote critical thought on the content presented.
sTUDENT ENGAGEMENT (CRITICAL THINKING & STUDENT ACTIVITIES)
Students will engage the content material both in writing and conversation. The guided notes offer students a platform to record the material with their own commentary and ideas on the lecture. Keeping students engages in the presentation, this helps them acquire as much of the material from my lecture as they can. The guided notes will have two pages that reflect the presentation and one page for group discussion of the material. The first two pages are half PowerPoint slide content and half blank note lines. For each slide, student will need to fill in the blanks on their pages by paying attention to the presentation. Highlighted words will often have some additional commentary, which can be recorded on the blank lines. The Blank writing lines are meant for student to record their thoughts and tangent commentary about the material. With all the slides’ content already on the page, students can write and draw on the free space notes that will best remind them of auxiliary material. Where this material will really start to take root and produce growth is in conversation. At three points through the lecture, student will go to their discussion page on the notes and write down what their group discussed about the questions. Each discussion has three questions about the material and encourages them to form an opinion and rationalize it. After five or ten minutes, I will regain their attention, make note of a few points I heard while listening to the groups, and continue with the lecture. Time management of these discussions is crucial, because the final discussion attempts to weigh in on everything that lecture delivered.
LESSON CLOSURE
At the close of this presentation, there is one final discussion prompt that will allow student to converse on the material for the rest of the class. They will have acquired information, history, results, and opinions on America’s political parties that they will now have to muse on further. Remembering their first two discussions, this last conversation now asks student to weigh the pros and cons of having a two party system.
ASSESSMENT (FORMATIVE AND SUMMATIVE)
At the end of class, students will show me their guided notes before they walk out of the room. Each page needs its fill-in the blanks completed and a reasonable amount of commentary filling the blank writing lines in order to get a stamp for participation credit. If there are missing blanks and meager commentary, I will give the page a check for look at it again when they turn in their notebooks. The check indicates that there is little writing so I may look at it more carefully to see if it is just direct words, full credit, or inadequate, half credit. A page without a stamp or check gets no participation credit for this formative assessment. For homework, students must take their notes and discussion writings and compose a one page summary as a summative assessment for the lesson. The bulk of this paper should be on the discussion, not recitation of the lecture.
ACCOMMODATIONS FOR ENGLISH LEARNERS, STRUGGLING READERS AND STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
Depending on the particular needs of the students, and fluency of the English Learner, different accommodation can be made depending on the material and available time. For my English Learners and struggling readers, much of the material is accompanied with an image. Assisting them with vocabulary could benefit the whole class by engaging students in a subject activity. An example would be when distinguishing the difference between democracy and republic. The class could be given a simple choice of Chocolate Milk or Kool-Aid that they all have to decide on as a whole. Under democracy, everyone votes on their favorite, and that is the winner. For the republic, one student from each group will vote on their favorite. This could be a great activity to demonstrate these concepts and could even be used in other lessons. In the case of a more intense special need, a blind student for example, the guided notes will be ineffective for them both as a tool of study and for their homework. Assuming that the school does not have a brail printer at this time, I would lend that student a tape recorder so that my lecture and the student’s discussion can be recorded in a manner that they will be able to use later. Most likely, this will be a reoccurring accommodation, so I will need to gain permission from the other students’ parents for group work.