AFRIN ALAVI

Since U.S. Government requires that students learn about “Democracy in Action”, we thought that by adding technology, our project would reflect this process and help democracy come alive in our classroom. Through the technology tools we had available at Churchill, we attempted to bring our 11^th graders an engaging, up-to-date, and relevant look at their government. In the student-centered activities, with the exception of the first Microsoft Publisher activity, we had students working in pairs. Due to both our goal of integrating student cooperative learning with systematic constraints at Churchill in terms of computer availability, such pair work was both advantageous and necessary.

Our U.S. Government Campaign Research project was the product of weeks of preparation.  The following are the main elements that made up the unit project but the Exhibits page offers a detailed timeline for the integration of technology into the curriculum.

LESSON #1:  Democracy Activity

·         Students imagined a society in which there was an absence of one or more of the Core Democratic Values

·         Students created a newspaper article that described such a society and showed what life would be like without the Core Democratic Value(s).

LESSON #2:  How a Bill Becomes a Law

·         Student were assigned a bill from Thomas.loc.gov

·         Students created a flowchart that took the bill through the process as it became a law.

LESSON #3:  Evaluation of a website

·         Students were assigned a list of websites and chose one to evaluate for authenticity.

·         Students used Kathy Schrock's Critical Evaluation of a Website as their assessment tool.

LESSON #4:  Government Political Party Platform/PAC Research

·         Students were assigned Political Party/PAC worksheets and researched sites to find answers to the questions.

LESSON #5:  Campaign Brochure Creation

·         Students created a campaign brochure to have a cartoon character elected as President.