So You Want to be President

Initiating the Web Quest Lesson Plan

The Web quest will be orchestrated solely by the student with facilitation by the teacher and no instruction during the two week period of its duration.  The unit will begin with a setting the tone, and briefing the group lesson plan as follows.  This lesson is used as the initial introductory web quest for this age group and will serve as an assessment of skills and an evaluation of where further instruction in web exploration is needed. 

Academic Goals and Objectives related to the TEKS and Learner Centered Proficiencies Are listed  within the left frame of the Web Quest.

Overarching Goals

• To ascertain the level of self guided exploration that each  individual student will engage in.
• To determine the level of computer literacy each student possesses.
• To enable the teacher to plan future lessons according to the response by the students.
• To meet the objectives listed within the web quest as the TEKS based objectives for a social studies unit.

Introduction

• Introduction of the lesson will be done by exploring the webquest pages giving explanations of what is to be accomplished through the course of the lesson i.e.

1. How to become a president
2. Researching biographies of past presidents
3. Determining differences in party affiliation and their backgrounds and platforms.
4. Arriving at group consensus of who will be the elected candidate
5. Campaigning for an election.
6. Creating election slogans and election posters
7. Brainstorming characteristics important for leaders
8. Conducting oral presentations of presidential candidate speeches in whole group.
9. Conducting a whole group class election 

• The problem will be read and a brainstorming activity will be conducted to access student's prior knowledge of elections, political parties, the office of President and similarities and differences between Presidential and other elections.
• An exploration of the proper use of technology will be conducted.
• Other web quests will be viewed to demonstrate other examples of problem based learning situations and how to conduct research on the web by typing questions or topics into the browser bar.
• Students will answer questions related to navigating pages in a web quest and how to conduct the lesson in cooperative groups.
• As whole group the class will discuss the implications of  cooperative learning groups and the accountability individuals along with  whole group participation as being important to the smooth running of each group.
• The teacher will select the groups that the students will break into.

Main Activities

Exploring Information on Presidents.

• TSW watch the multimedia presentation and click on the right corner to reveal presidential biographies that they can read in order to glean information about characteristics and accomplishments of presidents.
• Four biographies of presidents during different time periods are highlighted on the Introduction page.  The students will read these biographies and reflect in their journals about key facts a about the presidents. 
• The problem will be reread and discussed by each cooperative learning group and a strategy discussion session will take place.
• Attention will be drawn to the rubric and the calendar at the end of the lesson to ensure that all individual are aware of what needs to be accomplished within the scope of the lesson and the criteria that will be judged in each activity as being the most to the least effective. 
• The students will review the grading chart so they are aware of the value of each project assessment in relationship to the whole unit.

Format Page

• Students will break into cooperative learning groups of five students per group. 
• The groups will later select one of the parties to represent in the class election and  explore the terms of democratic, republican, independent ,socialist, communist on the Internet, in their text book, in the classroom library or in the school library to define them and to determine their characteristics and their platforms in order to choose which group will represent which party.
• Explanation of the activities and the timeframe are restated on the format page.
• Choices of candidates and campaign managers will be made within the initial stages of the webquest.

Task One

• Links are provided to research presidents important facts. Students will peruse these links and write important contributions of presidents in their journals
• Students will make a semantic map within their group about the different presidents that they have read about and the information pertinent and similar to each.
• Students will identify that the democratic process entails electing officials to make decisions in any group setting.

Task Two

Cross curricular Connection (Language Arts)

• Three books are featured in thisTask, the book that the Unit title was named after a picture book with caricatures and little known facts about all of the US Presidents.
• Students will draw caricatures of their presidential candidate.
• Through the use of this book the students will identify presidents as regular people and that before becoming President that they had different jobs.
• Extension:  The students will construct a web of the different jobs that US presidents have held prior to being elected.
• Copies of a book about campaign posters is provided for the student to read
• Students will explore areas in the classroom that posters would be most effectively displayed.
• Students will read the book on electing a class president and identify the steps necessary to be elected as president.
• Students will compare the roles of student leaders and US Presidential leaders and their responsibilities.

Task Three

• Students will utilize the information that they have gained from the explored material and develop a web in each group of characteristics necessary to be a good leader.
• The cooperative groups will then select a candidate from the group who they think demonstrate these characteristics or who they think will be a good leader. 
• A secret ballot can be done to elect the candidate.

Task Four

• Students will research  and write in their journals about their party affiliation and the campaign issues that they will write a speech about later in the lesson. 

Task Five

• Each student in the class will pick a different President to research with a new link provided, and will write a research paper about the information on that president by the end of the unit.
• Students will go back to previous pages of the Unit Plan to synthesize information from different sources.

Task Six

• Another link is provided in this Task area about campaign slogans and the students will utilize information that they have researched about the Presidents to try to answer a fun quiz about campaign slogans trying to match the slogan with the President.
• The students will in cooperative group make campaign posters from a tagboard, markers, crayons, tempera and any other medium that they can find in the art center to make an effective poster.
• Students will display the posters in the hallway. 

Task Seven

• A link is provided with speeches from past presidents.  With the use of some of the information in the speeches and their knowledge of campaign platforms, and the characteristics of a good leader, and the information provided within the speech link, the group will cooperatively write a campaign speech for the candidate to memorize and present to the whole class.
• All students of each group will write the campaign speech in their presidential journal and underline their contributions to the speech.
• The five candidates will present the speech to the whole class.

Task Eight

• The actual election will be held.  Students will be made aware that each party does not  need to vote for his candidate.
• A Q and A will be held to review what the important characteristics of a good leader are and the reasons for selecting candidates on that basis.
• A secret ballot will be cast and the students will hold the election by placing their votes in the ballot box.
• Two election officials will be selected to tally the votes for each candidate on the chalk board.
• The winner will be determined.

Task Nine

• Any terms that the group are still unsure of will be looked up in the online dictionary and critical vocabulary and their reflective statements will be written about this vocabulary in the journal.

Task Ten

• A final non-graded reflection of the process will be made in the journal. 
• The students will turn in their journals for completion and comments will be made by the teacher in the journals extending the learning or asking questions relevant to the unit.

Guided Practice

• The students will follow the steps of the unit plan and will be facilitated where necessary when question arise, or when the teacher has questions to clarify her understanding of their comprehension of the material. 
• While the students are engaged in the PBL the teacher will rove around the room while listening to the progress that each group is making during the unit's duration.
• Input will be added where necessary to get groups that are having difficulty, back on track.

Closure

• A final review of what has happened in the past week will culminate in another graphic organizer. 
• Review of the final products that are due to be turned in
• A discussion of what activities we will be doing in the upcoming weeks to further develop the unit on presidential elections, and related topics.

Extended Activities

• Listed as unit_lesson_plans on the discussion board will serve to extend the learning into the community and ensure that transfer of knowledge will occur by making connections between the unit plan and the subsequent activities.  Some extension activities are as follows:
• Write a class  letter to the president
• Electoral College Lesson Plan constructing a map of the electoral areas and the number of votes.
• Determining the difference between popular vote and electoral vote.
• The three branches of the government
• Printables with pictures to color and decorate on the presidents
• Quizzes on the different aspects of electing a president
• Debate between candidates
• Election Vocabulary Bingo
• So you want to be president quiz show
• Political caricatures drawn
• Developing a map of where the presidents lived
• Role Play two presidents from different times and the differences in problems
• Make a Venn Diagram of a comparison of two presidents.