Teacher:Wymore/ Martinez/ Chacon

Date: Feb.26/29
School: Blevins
Content Area: Social Studies
Title: Elections
Lesson #9 of 11

Grade Level:8

Content Standard(s) addressed by this lesson:

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

Learning Targets typed into Google Classroom

RAP: Primaries vs. Caucuses Zaption video and Venn Diagram
Mock Presidential candidate ballot through News ELA

Teaching/
Presentation:

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
(Select the most
primary elections. Overview of conventions and the electoral
appropriate
college. Three review questions to conclude electoral college
teaching model.)
mini-lecture.
-direct instruction
2.
Modeling: 270ToWin: Demonstrate how individual states
-presentation
electoral votes affect the result of a presidential election by using
model
the 2000 election interactive map on 270towin.com and looking at
-concept teaching the result of the election if CO, FL, MT voted for the other
-cooperative
candidate or abstained. Then release the students to do the same
learning
inferencing activity for an election of their choosing.
-inquiry
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 effect 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 NewsELA 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-3 Students work on George Washington project with

Ms. Goodfellow.
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 webquest 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 closey 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?
This lesson was successful in that a large majority of students were able to recall
key vocabulary from this lesson later on in the unit. Such concepts were: the number of
electoral votes needed to win the presidency, whats a majority vote, primaries and
caucuses, presidential candidates and political parties. These concepts were taught
through student-led webquests on 270towin.com and isidewith.com. Both websites
allowed students to explore these concepts on their own terms. Because both sites
were student-driven, they both increased student engagement. Having students recall
these concepts from this lesson in later discussions throughout the unit proves to me
that this lesson was a success.
2. What changes, omissions, or additions to the lesson would you make if you
were to teach again?
If I were to teach this lesson again I would tweak a couple of things. I would like to
make elections a two-day lesson because there is so much to cover in order to
adequately address our civics standards thoroughly. I liked how we played around with
electoral votes on 270towin.com in order to gain an understanding of the electoral
college but I feel the electoral college is a concept a lot of people struggle to
understand, let alone eighth graders. I would like to spend more time on that site
looking at historic elections and the role specific states electoral votes played in the
turnout of the election. I modeled the site by doing this with the 2000 election but
having the students working through the site more is more impactful. As most lessons
go, I hope to have more time to explore the concepts taught in this lesson.
3. What do you envision for the next lesson?
Our next lesson will begin with students writing reflections on this lessons learning
targets as all our lessons begin. This activates prior learning and ties it into the learning
that will occur in the current lesson. It was interesting timing that we taught our election
lesson during Colorados primaries so we will debrief what happened during Colorados

primaries and relate it to our learning. This will add relevancy and show students that
what is being taught in the classroom is directly applicable to life outside the classroom.