This is one of my favorite units, only because it is such a Janus head. Personally, I am torn. I love special interest, and am a member of many myself. But the impact of special interest, the potential corruption and minimization of the majority is so dangerous and alluring. It makes teaching this unit so particularly thrilling. Here is the rundown on my unit. Work the Bloom's TaxonomyStandard and Honors alike will be moving up and down the Bloom's taxonomy. We have the lower levels with vocabulary and identification. We spend time on websites in class applying concepts, look at primary source documents, and analyzing raw and processed data. And at the end, we evaluate both special interest in lobbying and in campaign finance to determine its value. The only level I fail to reach consistently is creating. I will be back for that later in November. I plan to cap off my entire experience with a group project that evaluates the impact of all linkage institutions. However, many kids chose to actually create their own political message during the grassroots activity. Students stamped their own money, posted it on Twitter, and got SOs from @StampStampede online. It is thrilling to see the kids geek out over political discussions online. Good stuff going on here! Wanna recreate this unit in your classroom and get awesome resources along the way? Check me out on TeachersPayTeachers for the entire unit. That's right. 19 pages of resources and handouts. All for you. I love giving freebies, too. So here is something I threw together to help kids understand the concepts of iron triangles, issue networks, and the revolving door.
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It's election day here in 'Merica. (Why is this not a national holiday?) I am sitting at my desk thinking, writing, planning for voters, and how I taught this last year. I have two classes to plan for now: one Honors Government and one Standard. (I teach in VA, and we don't do Common Core. So I am going to talk Virginian, and you can translate.) This year I am trying to craft a course that meets diverse learners. What do I need to get across to each of these learners, and what is the most interesting way to get there? Let me take you on a tour. 1. Both courses use my on-line course notes. I use Versal to divulge all kinds of information. My textbook is from 2009, and woefully inadequate. So, I have started typing up notes on the course and incorporating video, quizzes, images, graphics, and other apps you can throw in there. Kids need a user id and password, but that information is not shared with me. Versal is great in that it allows me to circumvent funding issues, but it is a huge sink of time for me right now. My thoughts are that I will be able to update it as I see fit next year. I like it better than blackboard in that it feels like a blog (like this) and access only requires a wifi and connective device. Kids should appreciate that. 2. Evaluation versus application. Both courses get the history and current events of voting, what the Constitution and the states do, and laws that cause states and federal agencies to battle each other. I focus more on collaborative review activities with my standard class, while my honors kids delve more into the actual process, players, and impact of voting. 3. Skills, skills, skills. We work with statistics in this unit, an essential skill that is requested by all curriculum everywhere. We work with primary and secondary resources. Honors, again getting a bit more extension, gets to chew on some extended radio interviews actually questioning some of the folks who are active in creating voting barriers. There are a lot of things in this unit that are up for sale on my TpT site... check it out to help you completely roll this unit out!
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Jen's bookshelf: nerdcation
I want to start by thanking Mr. Snowden and Mr. Greenwald for their uncompromising dedication to giving the NSA violations air time and transparency.
I wanted to share some of the most important things I have learned from this book bef...
tagged:
nerdcation
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
AuthorI lovgov. LOVE IT! I love teaching government, learning about it, debating, discussing, asking questions about government. And not the standard boiler plate questions, but the hard ones that are NOT in the books. Archives
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