Growing Voters and Election 2004
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Collaboration All Grades
Overview

For simplicity, the project involves 3 schools: A, B, and C, 3 grades: grade 2, grade 5, and grade 9. More, or different, grades could be involved without changing the structure of the lessons. Collaboration could happen within schools -- grade 5 presents to grade 2 etc.; or within communities, grade 9 presents instead to a 5th grade across town; or nationally, grade 5 could exchange its digital scrapbook on the election with a 5th grade class on the other side of the country, if desired.

Grade 5 and grade 9 classes will be broken up into groups, with each group owning the investigation and presentation of a particular candidate and party. Each group will research their party and candidates, and create a multimedia presentation about their candidate to present to the rest of the class. Each group will collaborate with the corresponding group in the other schools. These presentations will be integrated into a whole presentation describing the parties, the candidates, and the election process. Students should consider the essential questions when researching their party and candidates.

Grade 9 classes will present to a sister school grade 9 class. They will investigate the issues from their sister school's perspective.

Grade 5 students will keep scrapbooks of presidential candidates. Many students are already scrapbooking on paper and with electronic sources. They would have fun with this and learn at the same time. Students will bring in magazine articles from home. Students will also search the web on their own to find items for their scrapbook.

The students in the higher grades will also be sharing their presentations with the students in the lower grades. The lower grade students will ask the older students about the political parties and the candidates. After the presentations, classes will discuss and reflect on what they have learned about elections and the political parties in the United States.

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