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Meet the Press
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Subject: | Language Arts, Civics,
Current Events, Ed. Technology
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Grade: | 6-8, 9-12
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Brief Description
Students play the roles of candidate, campaign manager, and journalist in this activity.
Objectives
Students listen to candidate interviews that are available online.
Keywords
election, president, candidate, issues, platform
Materials Needed
computers with Internet access or printouts related to candidates' stands on the issues from news sources and/or the candidates' Web sites
Lesson Plan
Encourage students to listen to candidate interviews; you might videotape interviews or a debate that includes the candidates. Or students might gather information about a candidate's stand on the issues from the candidate's Web site and other resources. Those resources might include the following:
Election Center 2008 (CNN)
Politics (USA Today)
OnTheIssues.org
2008 Election (Washington Post)
Election Guide (C-SPAN)
Fox News
Vote 2008 (PBS Online NewsHour)
Then arrange students in groups of three. Explain that one student will be the campaign manager, the second student will be the candidate, and the third student will be a journalist. The campaign manager prepares the candidate's platform, makes it available to both the politician and the journalist, and monitors the interview. The journalist prepares questions based on the candidate's platform. The candidate prepares brief opening and closing remarks as well as answers to questions the journalist is most likely to ask.
Ask each group to conduct their interviews. If possible, videotape the interviews. Present the videotaped interviews to the class. Ask: Would you vote for the candidate based on their interviews? Why or why not?
Assessment
When the class has viewed all the videos, have students vote for the winning candidate. Use a chart to tally the results of the voting. Ask students to rate their team's effort and critique each team's knowledge of the issues.
Lesson Plan Source
Education World
Submitted By
Linda Starr
National Standards
Social Sciences:
NSS-C.5-8.1
NSS-C.5-8.5
NSS-C.9-12.1
NSS-C.9-12.5
Language Arts:
NL-ENG.K-12.5
Originally published 08/14/2000
Links last updated 09/19/2008
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