Campaign Time!

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Vocabulary instruction emphasizes building vocabulary word knowledge, comprehension and word-learning strategies related to the upcoming presidential election.

OBJECTIVE

Students use new presidential campaign vocabulary knowledge and apply it by campaigning for a candidate.

Students will:

1. Use new vocabulary to campaign for a candidate.
2. Work and share ideas together.
3. Share what they learned orally.

MATERIALS

• computers
• paper and pencil
• poster board or butcher paper

SET UP AND PREPARE

At the beginning of this unit, tell students that they will work in small groups to develop a campaign strategy to present to the class. Depending on the size of your class, divide the class into two or four groups. Make sure both candidates are represented equally. Assign a team leader for each group. Tell the group leaders that they will be graded equally on participation and the final presentation.

DIRECTIONS

• Divide students into groups.
• Give them their choice of candidate (you may have to assign this if they all want the same candidate).
• Tell them to research their candidate and to choose the candidate's issues that are most important to the group. They can use the computer, newspaper articles, etc. Decide how much time they have to present to class. 15 minutes is plenty of time for most groups.
• Using those issues, they can do any or all  of the following presentations:
1. campaign slogan
2. campaign speech
3. commercial for candidate
4. rap, song, etc

• After the presentations, each student will receive a secret ballot to cast their vote for the next president. The votes will be tallied and the winner will be announced.

SUPPORTING ALL LEARNERS

Students will benefit from working in a group and the ELL students will have the benefit of their peers helping them.

ASSESS STUDENTS

Observe and listen to students in their groups to assess their learning and to determine each group member's participation.

ASSIGNMENTS

Each student will complete their research work at home to bring back to class. The groups will be given additional class time to organize and complete their presentation.

HOME CONNECTION

Students can ask family members to help them with their research on the candidates or with some creative suggestions for a slogan, speech, etc.

EVALUATE THE LESSON

Did the students work together as a unified group? Was their campaign project informative?

As our middle school 2008-09 Teacher Advisor, Sandra Blair uses the READ 180 program to help her 7^th and 8^th grade struggling readers and expects all students to succeed.

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