Teacher: Wymore/ Martinez/ Chacon

Date:
Feb.26/29
School: Blevins

Grade Level: 8
Content Area: Social Studies

Title: Elections
Lesson #9 of 11
Content Standard(s) addressed by this lesson: (Write Content Standards directly from the
standard)
4.1 Analyze elements of continuity and change in the United States government and the role of
citizens over time.
d. Evaluate the result of various strategies for political change over time.
f. Examine ways citizens may effectively voice opinions, monitor government and bring
about change nationally.
Inquiry Questions:
Why do people create governments and laws?
In what ways do citizens play a role in Democracy?
Concepts and skills students master:
Ability to support opinions with evidence
Understanding how individual beliefs and opinions relate to larger patterns of beliefs in
American government
21st century skill: analytical thinking; ability to identify similarities in personal opinions and that
of major political parties
21st century skill: Creating and innovating; develop a growing understanding of the citizens role
in Democracy and how to align personal beliefs with political functions/parties/candidates.
Evidence Outcomes:
Every student will be able to:
1. I can summarize how candidates are selected through primaries and caucuses.
2. I understand how the Electoral College works when electing the President.
3. I can identify my position on the political spectrum.
Assessment of Evidence Outcomes:
3 Statements about the Electoral College
1. The president of the United States is selected by the Electoral College/ popular
vote.
2. There are 538 electors, it takes 269/270 electoral votes to win the election.
3. The number of electors from each state are based on Senators
Representatives/Representatives governor.
Elections Worksheet: Explanation of 5 issues that are heavily debated and influence peoples
political ideology.

Planned Lesson Activities

Activity Name

Elections

Approx. Time

1 hour 15 minutes

Anticipatory Set

Teaching/
Presentation:
(Select the most
appropriate teaching
model.)
-direct instruction
-presentation model
-concept teaching
-cooperative
learning
-inquiry

Learning Targets typed into Google Classroom

RAP: Primaries vs. Caucuses Zaption video and Venn Diagram
Mock Presidential candidate ballot through News ELA
Includes: Input, Modeling and Checking for Understanding
1.
Input: RAP: Primaries vs. Caucuses Zaption video. Debrief
video by creating a Venn diagram about the two forms of primary
elections. Overview of conventions and the electoral college. Three
review questions to conclude electoral college mini-lecture.
2.
Modeling: 270ToWin: Demonstrate how individual states
electoral votes affect the result of a presidential election by using the
2000 election interactive map on 270towin.com and looking at the
result of the election if CO, FL, MT voted for the other candidate or
abstained. Then release the students to do the same inferencing
activity for an election of their choosing.
3. Checking for Understanding: Ask 3 questions and shout out as a
class to check for understanding of the Electoral College before
beginning the interactive election simulation on 270towin.com:
1. The President of the United States is selected by the
Electoral College/ Popular Vote.
2. There are 538 electors, it takes 269/270 to win the election
3. The number of electors from each state are based on
Senators Representatives/ Representatives Governor
4.
Questioning Strategies: Remember: List the potential
presidential candidates from either party. Understanding: Explain
how the president is chosen through the electoral college. Applying:
Choose the correct statement to correctly explain the electoral
college:
1. The President of the United States is selected by the
Electoral College/ Popular Vote.
2. There are 538 electors, it takes 269/270 to win the election
3. The number of electors from each state are based on
Senators Representatives/ Representatives Governor
Analyzing: Compare/Contrast primaries and caucuses. Evaluating: If
you change key electoral states, will it affect the result of a
Presidential election?

Teaching Strategy:
Guided Practice
&
Differentiation

270towin.com
After watching me walk through the 2000 election and change the
electoral votes given to each president from each state, the
students will choose an election from the past and create scenarios
where the candidate who lost wouldve won. Which states (and their
amount of electoral votes) would have been needed to swing the
vote. Designed to emphasize how electoral votes, by state, affect
election results.

Teaching Strategy:
(Independent
Practice)

The next lesson will begin with a learning target reflection on this
lesson. Students will use academic language sentence starters to
write a sentence on what they have learned about the learning
targets. One sentence about: primaries vs. caucus, electoral college
and the political spectrum. We will also go over which candidates
took the votes in both the student News ELA ballot and Super
Tuesday results.

Closure

Reflect on learning targets during the next lesson as stated above.

As students finish their isidewith quizzes they are sharing out with
one another which parties and candidates their opinions align most
with and why to iterate the various position on the political spectrum

Materials

Laptops: Google Classroom, isidewith.com, 270towin.com

Elections worksheet
Electoral College PowerPoint

Accommodations
&
Modifications

To modify: 3s-Sarah.
To extend: The isidewith quiz allows students to answer more
questions per issue category in order to learn about more issues as
well as provide a more accurate depiction of where they fall on the
political spectrum

Assessment

Elections Worksheet: 3 questions about the electoral college,

electoral votes election simulation demonstrating understanding of
state electoral votes influence on Presidential election outcomes,
ISideWith.com worksheet demonstrating understanding of a political
party and presidential candidates political ideology.

Co-Teaching
Strategies
Purpose of lesson/State Standard Addressed:
4.1 Analyze elements of continuity and change in the United States
government and the role of citizens over time.
d. Evaluate the result of various strategies for political
change over time.
f. Examine ways citizens may effectively voice opinions,
monitor government and bring about change nationally.
Co-Teaching strategy and Rationale: For this lesson we used the 1
teach, 1 assist co-teaching strategy. This lesson was partly a

lecture on the electoral college and partly a web quest where

students applied their understanding of the electoral college and
took an isidewith.com quiz which quizzed them on their opinions
towards a variety of political issues then gave the students the
political party and presidential candidate who most closely aligned
with their opinions. Because the lesson was lecture and student
work time, it worked best to have one teacher guide the class.
Were there other co-teaching strategies used when implementing
the lesson? If so, why?
Differentiated: Students without laptops worked one-on-one with a
teacher through the 270towin election simulation
Would you use this co-teaching strategy for this lesson again?
Yes, it was an easy to instruct lesson which one teacher could easily
lead. Student work time allows for a fair amount of circulation.

Post Lesson Reflection

1. To what extent were lesson objectives achieved? (Utilize assessment data to
justify your level of achievement) With this year being an election year, the students
were very engaged in learning about the process of an election, as well as their own
political views. Due to their engagement, the students were able to successfully reach
their learning targets as well as identify who they most agreed with in the presidential
race.
2. What changes, omissions, or additions to the lesson would you make if you
were to teach again? The lesson covers all of the bases that we needed to cover,
but if I were to teach it again I would modify the workload of the lesson to be less
intensive, as the students were struggling to finish their work before moving on
to the next task.
3. What do you envision for the next lesson? (Continued practice, reteach content,
etc.) The students were able to grasp the process of presidential election, and as such
well continue on with our unit instead of backtracking. For the next lesson, well talk
about the final and most important additions to the constitution, the bill of rights.