Time Required

This lesson will require four days.

Materials

Initial Motivation 

Ask students to bring in articles on any current political campaign.  Have students explain the selected articles.  From these presentations, they should be able to assess the key strategies and issues pertinent to the current presidential election.  Keep a running list of political terms that need defining on the board.  At the end of the presentations, have students write the terms in their notebooks.  Discuss the meaning of each term with the class.

Procedures

1. Review the rubric with the class.  Explain that students will be graded as a group, and that each individual must contribute in order to achieve a good grade for the group. 

2. Divide the class into groups by time periods:

a. 1900–1920
b. 1921–1940
c. 1941–1960
d. 1961–1980
e. 1981–2000

3. Have students create charts and graphs that illustrate the following:

a. How their state voted in the presidential elections.
b. Whether or not the state voted for the winning ticket.
c. The major issues of the campaigns, and whether they were in line with the general issues of the voters.

Ask students to include as many trends, statistics, and facts as possible.  Additionally, pictures of presidents and political cartoons should be incorporated into their projects.  Encourage students to use periodicals (e.g., Time and Newsweek), U.S. history textbooks, library reference materials and Internet resources.  The American President website biography section index on campaigns and elections will help students with facts on the presidential elections that they are researching.

4. Have students present their research findings to the class. 

5. After all of the presentations, try to formulate some conclusions about the state's voting patterns through the course of the 20th century. Have the students then hypothesize how they see the voting pattern evolving in the 21st century, beginning with this year's election.

Assessment

To assess individual student's performance, assign this essay question:  Discuss the voting patterns of your state in presidential elections from 1900 to 2000. 

Use the rubric below to determine group grades:

Outstanding (90–100 points)

• Works toward goal of the assignment
• Shows superior comprehension of the issues
• Demonstrates good analysis
• Contains relevant statistics and charts
• Focuses on the voting patterns and issues
• Integrates all elements well
• Mentions major issues
• Incorporates political cartoons for all elections

Average (75–89 points)

• Provides comprehensive but disorganized information
• Offers some use of statistics and charts, but not much
• Has gaps and omissions in the information
• Does not fully explain the political issues involved in the campaigns
• Needs to tie information together to lead to a greater understanding
• Incorporates political cartoons but not for all elections

Below Average (0–74)

• Does not seem to understand the material
• Presents confusing information
• Offers little information
• Does not visibly show voting patterns
• Does not explain political issues
• Incorporates minimal number of political cartoons

Additional Resources