"Every election is determined by the people who show up.” ― Larry J. Sabato, Pendulum Swing Let's say that again. "Every election is determined by the people who show up.” ― Larry J. Sabato, Pendulum Swing Are you listening, people? I love Larry Sabato. Love him. Love the Crystal Ball. Love his MOOC... Was even considering signing up for it... But, I think I may have to disagree with him for half a minute. Go back to the non-voter. Especially those in those heavily partisan states like the Cowboy states or even California. If I am not a part of the ruling elite in that state, why bother? So, I love this unit because it goes into more detail about why its not just if you vote, but where you live that matters. Where you live, especially the district you live in and how its drawn, REALLY matters. So here is my unit. Enjoy. I start on day one with a nice overview of the nomination process. We prep for class by reading the Washington Post article, Why Iowa Gets To Go First. We also watch a little video about how Primaries work. I ask my kids to really consider this guiding question: What types of communities would be more likely to chose a caucus versus a primary election? Why? We start class by reading two articles that highlight the idiosyncrasies of Virginia Ballot Access rules. Ballot Rules and VA Ballot Access They play an important role in illustrating how overtly partisan the whole primary process really is. We discuss the differences in what parties need to do to get on the ballot, and evaluate whether one state is inherently more democratic than the other. Interesting to note here, your students answers may differ over what they consider to be more democratic... more access to the ballot or more representative of the parties' will. Key to this discussion is to act as a mythbuster. The caucuses and primaries are so much more partisan in their results because caucuses and primaries are meant to be an intraparty discussion about who best to nominate to represent each repective party in the electorate while appealing to the undecided and moderate voters. Kids think that these are 'regular' elections (whatever that is)... and I think it is because the elections are held by the states. I remind them that the states election laws are reflecting the needs of the major parties to nominate candidates among themselves... these elections have little federal government oversight because they are merely a nominating mechanism for the parties. I reinforce this by pointing out that minor parties skip this process. Not only because election law prevents their entrance, but it is such a costly process (both in time and capital). Draining funds and volutneers this early on in the election season would make supporting the minor party candidate's run during the general election very difficult. They often have little widespread public debate over who will secure the nomination, because their candidates can easily reach their party in the electorate at nominating conventions. So, we read these articles, discuss the issues, and ask these three questions: If you are a campaign manager, what would you advise your candidate to do if you are a 1.) member of one of the two major parties, or 2.) a third party candidate? What impact does this have on the quality of candidates on the primary ballot? We then move onto the nominating pipeline. I discuss the steps, and include a bit more discussion on the differences between caucuses and primaries. Caucuses seem to elude the kids, so I have to resources I use... one of them was put out by the Clinton campaign to promote caucusing in 2008... And another lovely video from NPR's Ken Rudin walking us through how it works. (He has some really corny jokes, but it works.) We go right through the pipeline up above, spending time talking about the role of delegates (and Superdelegates), the difference between open and closed primaries and caucuses, and ways to improve the primary and caucus procedure. We talk about how they are not held at the same time, and how important Iowa as the first nominating vehicle (caucus), New Hampshire (first primary), South Carolina, et al to the vitality of campaigns. I hit up...
Youth Leadership Initiative also has some great lessons that go with this. I took some resources from their lesson "Selecting a President Part I." Specifically, we did the following: Distribute or project the map Methods of Selecting Presidential Delegates by State. Have students analyze the map and respond to the following questions:
PS... If I had time, I would show this video to show how the party and the media deals with evaluating candidates. Funny to mention that Huntsman was not taken seriously in the straw polls, as well as failing to get on the ballot of Arizona (which shows poor campaign coordination and possible poor leadership) is given a lot of discussion by the media. The media loves everyone BUT Ron Paul. It's a funny video. Watch the very end. Expletive alert, but it's bleeped out. And that is it for day one! Phew!
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The historical struggle for the right to vote is a well documented one in US History, but it is fractured at best. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. Occoquan Workhouse. Forced feedings. 19th amendment. 15th amendment. Literacy tests. (For fun... have your class take one!) Jim Crow. Grandfather Clauses. SNCC. Freedom Rides. NAACP. VRA of 1965. Viet Nam War. Conscription. "Old Enough to Die, Old Enough to Vote." Kent State Massacre. 26th Amendment. (Side bar: my grandfather, an officer in the Ohio National Guard at the time, and involved in the response, did explain how the National Guard did NOT want to respond to the riots, and struggled with the events on May 4th.) Surprisingly, when considered on whole, the issue of suffrage is far more controversial then most people think. It is constantly in the news, but does not make it above the fold most days. So I go to great lengths to present this topic in the light of three major conflicts. Should the federal or state governments oversee voting requirements? Should there be more concern over the security of the ballot or the access to the ballot be safeguarded? Is this a partisan issue or not? We start class off with an overview of voting requirements; most of which are set by the states. I make note of the fact that the Constitution grants limited authority over ballot access to voters; namely through a handful of amendments that require access for all despite race (15th), gender (19th), age (26th), and ability to pay (24th). Yet states routinely classify the constituency into groups eligible and ineligible to vote under the pretext that these classifications are reasonable. This includes:
as well as barring individuals from voting dependent upon:
So, are these reasonable classifications? In order to do so, we categorize efforts on the federal and state level into one of two categories. Either efforts to ensure access to the ballot or efforts to ensure security of the ballot. (pardon my shutdown discussion with the GOP bigwig pics in the middle). The final step in this introduction is to listen to the first 24 minutes of this interview on Fresh Aire of PA State Rep Daryl Metcalfe and his efforts to pass a Voter ID law. The second half of the interview is of Columbia University's Nate Persily.
I have a supplemental audio guide available for purchase and download on my store... I that there is no one stop source out there on political parties... You really have to cobble together a lesson... Youth Leadership has some lessons on how to teach lessons, but I have found I have to do my own work here. For starters, I have to teach the history of American political parties. I used to do this by having the kids read the section in our Magruder's textbook and create a cartoon strip to work this out. It was a way to get kids to start thinking of political symbolism, text structure, and how to explain historical issues pictorially. I am sad to say, kids did struggle with this. It also, frankly, took too long. I am trying something new. I started off having kids read from the 12th ed of American Government Power & Purpose (a great resource I picked up from my AP Training). There is a great section that goes into more detail then the Magruder book. I then had students read the selection to find evidence that supported and refuted the following statement: The two major parties are coalitions of several factions and interest groups and recognize the importance of conducting campaigns that appeal to voters in the middle of the political spectrum, veering neither too far left nor too far right of the political center. They then walked up and wrote their strongest quote on the board. In my five classes, some kids got this and some kids did not. Some were able to target passages that detailed tenuous coalitions for Democrats made up of urban working class folks, small farmers, and mining interests from the west. We talked about how it was a flaw of the parties that these different interests were forced to find home in one party, despite the fact that they may not agree; and that this is a reason why people tend to vote the way the do, because they want to vote for a candidate who wins. They also found passages that described very polarized times in history; in which there were more political options then Rs and Ds, as well as situations in which we only had one party @ the founding of the nation. I was able to highlight that this was because there is no constitutional mandate for parties, etc... good and bad. One great question I had from our discussion was whether or not there would be a time where parties would cease to exist or be unnecessary... which was a great foray into the five functions of parties... and how it would be highly unlikely (despite the fact that we humans like to coagulate as a matter of nature)
Here is a brief rundown of the sites used and the questions asked... National Website Republican & Democrat State Website: Virginia Republican & Democrat Local Website: Fairfax County Republican & Democrat Answer the following questions: · What types of messages and actions are advocated at each of these levels of the party? Provide specific examples (nominating candidates, informing and activitating supporters, the bonding agent, governing, or the watchdog function) Do you feel that the messages from the examined websites are being directed at the party in the electorate, party in the government, or the party organization? Can you provide information that supports this assertion? Finally, to round out this class, we evaluated party websites at the national, state, and local level. We scoured these websites looking for information that exemplifies these five political functions of parties. I also wanted to highlight how sometimes local and state political issues are out of sync with national political agendas, and that is primarily because all the parties really care about is winning. See what I mean? You really gotta dig on this one! What do you do to cover these topics? Did you hear about this book last year? I can't think of a more analytical examination of the lack of compromise and polarized, partisan politics than this book. While I don't ask my kids to know about it in detail, we do spend a brief time examining the basic concepts. But in order to do that, I have to do some ground work. 1. What are we all expected to do? as citizens? We start by reading an excerpt from Robert Bellah's Habits of the Heart. The kids really get thrown for a loop on this one, because it seems so out of place. He is a sociologist, and talks about the importance of civic life and private life. He uses lexicon from old westerns to prove his point; I turn to Bruce Wayne from the Batman series. BW: hyper private, but connected to the community. All of this spirals back to selflessness vs selfishness... a keystone point in the excerpt. We started asking what we need to do all of these things, and came up with five themes.
They are needed for society and the economy to function. So, which is the most at risk? Well, in this scenario, it's compromise. Students watched a short video on PBS that explains the work in broad strokes, but here is a more detailed interview. You have to explain some of the history, like Obamacare's link to the Republican party in 1993 and the filibuster of today... but they get it. Here are some great questions to sum up their experience... Do you think that the government of today is fulfilling the promise of the Preamble; the stated purpose of the government? It is well accepted that the government should provide for societal equality (race, religion, gender), however, is it the role of the government to provide economic equality? If I had a nickle for every kid who prefaced their opinions with, "My [parental unit] says... So, let's tackle that concept. It's not just about political typology, as discussed in this lovely handout from informationisbeautiful.com. I spend a lot of time explaining that "conservative" and "Republican" are not synonymous. You can be one, and not the other... , and it can change from issue to issue. I love this handout because it is colorful, fun to look at, and a great example of a visual graphic. Oh, and you can buy a poster sized copy for your wall. So, they each get a copy, and then we discuss it. And then we answer the best question of all... "What are you?" To answer this, I skip to the Pew Center for the People and the Press. They have a great little political typology quiz. I originally had my students take the quiz on their connective devices, but it doesn't load onto touch screens correctly. Off to the magical computer lab!! About twenty minutes to answer 20 questions and read up on your typology (one of seven), and then we talk. I love asking the students to question how accurate the quiz is... where the inaccuracies lie... (validity, intensity, and relevance), and then we line up. We stand in a dot graph (Line up behind the first person in your typology), which was a great suggestion from a student in stats. So, what does this mean? Why do kids feel the way they do? Once they discuss this question with people in the same typology, they answer... (political socialization!!)
I need to layer in age, gender, race, socio-economic status, and geographical factors. So, I live in suburban D.C., and most of my kids are postmoderns. What are yours, and why? |
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...
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nerdcation
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nerdcation and to-read
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nerdcation and to-read
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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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