Lesson Plan: Elect Me! Creating a Campaign Platform and Advertisement

SUBJECTS

Civics, US Government, US History

GRADE LEVEL

8-12

OBJECTIVES

Students will be a candidate for an election as a United States Representative or Senator in the upcoming election. They will need to decide with party fits their political views best, plan, and present a 3-5 minute campaign commercial about them as a candidate, their platform, and why the voters should vote for them.

LESSON PLAN

This lesson is done as individual student projects:

Step 1: Hold a classroom discussion about the major points of the platform of the Democratic and Republican Parties.

Step 2: Ask students to research a political office they would like to hold.

Step 3: Once the students determine the office they would like to hold, have them brainstorm three to five possible issues that would be concerns for the electors.

Step 4: Expose students to different propaganda techniques. Have them create a 3-5 minute campaign commercial using at least two different types of propaganda techniques in their presentations.

Questions students should be able to answer prior to creating their campaign commercials:

Which office are they running for and why?

Which party fits their political views the best?

Which platform and plank?

Why are they better than other candidates?

Which area of voters are they appealing to?

How are they going to attract the voters’ attention?

Which propaganda method will they use and why?

Step 5: The students’ campaign commercials will be recorded or presented live to the class for evaluation by their peers.

NOTE: A similar project may be done with the different types of government. Instead of doing this lesson as an individual project, put the students in groups of three. Give them a type of government and have them research the government. Student groups will make a presentation on why the rest of the class should choose their government over the other types presented to the class.

RESOURCES

Computer

TV with a DVD player

Video recorder

CREDIT

Jan Loyd
Cabot Junior High South
Cabot, AR

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