Northeastern University: Conventions and Campaigns - Political Parties and Presidential Candidates

Details

Activity Description

In this activity, students will analyze the ways in which political parties and presidential candidates use persuasion to convince voters to vote for them; and identify how methods of persuasion change over time-based on other changes in US society.

 

Preparation

1. Make sure that the site is not blocked at your school and that the resource pages and video files can be viewed.
2. Review the detailed Lesson Plan .
3. Download and make copies of the Tracing Changes Over Time in Conventions & Analyzing Methods of Persuasion (Graphic Organizers) [PDF].
4. Makes copies of additional resources if necessary. Links to additional resources are found in the Resources section of the lesson plan.
5. Decide on how to get students to the Web site if they will be working independently or in small groups rather than as a whole class. We suggest adding a link to this site to your class Web site, send students a link in an e-mail, use a shared online bookmarking system, or bookmark it on each computer.

How-To

1. Refer to the detailed Lesson Plan .and links to resources.
2. In the dark blue navigation bar at the top of the page you will find different periods in history which provide information on how conventions and campaigns were held during those periods. Students will explore these as they complete the lesson.
3. Have students either as a whole class or independently complete the Quiz found in the dark blue navigation bar.

Teacher Tips

• Student work and both graphic organizers can be used as assessment tools.
• If you do not have multiple computers in your class, you can download and print the PDF document (icon found at the end of the dark blue navigation bar) which has similar content to the site itself.

More Ways

• U.S. Political Conventions & Campaigns has other detailed lesson plans on Campaign Finance , Nominations and Conventions , Policy and Platforms , and Media and Debates .
• This lesson was found linked to the Teacher's First Web site (Web Site link below) which has over 16,000 such lessons and activities for the K-12 system. Some of the other lessons have a video element to them, so be sure you have speakers.

Program Areas

• ASE: High School Diploma

Documents

• Political Parties and Campaigns.png - Screenshot of Northeastern University's Political Parties and Campaigns Lesson plan

Subjects

• Social Studies
  • American Government
  • U.S. History

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