Strategies
Because the purpose of this unit focuses around a critical inquiry, the strategies used to address the objectives compel students to ask questions and - upon coming up with an answer - question those answers in an effort to get to the root of the focusing question. In order to approach a suitable answer in reference to whether America is a successful democracy, many different concepts will be introduced with varied points of view expressed by several different authors. While lecture will certainly be employed, it is essential that students have experience grappling with period and contemporary texts. What follows are some strategies with specific resources mentioned to help teachers match relevant material to the desired concept.
Matching and Categorizing Democracy Criteria and Institutional Requirements
In order for students to truly grasp the meaning of American democracy they must be able to define "democracy" and give examples of how America has adapted that concept. While part of the unit will focus on activating the prior knowledge of students in regards to what we call democracy today, the main focus is on using criteria developed by the political scientist Robert Dahl to categorize American institutions and rhetoric as more or less democratic. Dahl gives two methods of measurement that are ideally combined to generate a more comprehensive spectrum of democratic potential and practice. These two measurements - discussed here in the rationale and as well as in On Democracy - are the basis for establishing a working definition of democracy for the purposes of this unit.
While Dahl's democratic criteria and institutional requirements are perfect for helping to organize students' thoughts on American Constitutional democracy, many students need better tools for understanding the references made by Dahl. For example, one of Dahl's criteria is effective participation. Explaining this concept to students might reach some of them, but many need a more concrete example to really comprehend what effective participation encompasses in a democracy. Thus Dahl's other set of standards - the institutional requirements of democratic countries - provides models of what concrete governmental practices help to fulfill the five criteria. As per our example, effective participation can be measured by a government's willingness to provide freedom of expression to its people.
Linking these two sets of criteria together offers students a different way of approaching a potentially confusing topic. Taking the conceptual principles of ideally democratic governments and bolstering that information with concrete institutional examples gives students the opportunity to go further in their task of defining democracy. They not only have surface standards, they also have the tools necessary to critically look at their own democracy and other established and burgeoning democracies. They can use these tools to gain perspective on how governments build either restrictive or permissive democracies and on the consequences of such choices.
Jigsaw of Intentions and Purposes of Government and Democracy
Engaging with sources from any given time period enhances students' understanding of the time period. This blanket statement can be proven true or false depending upon the method in which those sources are introduced to a class. If students are simply given period literature with no context and no purpose, chances are that no understanding will take place. If, on the other hand, the period texts being used are set up as competing viewpoints on a single topic then students are required to truly engage with the material and use critical thinking skills to form their own opinions on the subject. A jigsaw is one effective way to divide the task of reading many different texts while also requiring students to interact with all of the different viewpoints offered by the chosen pieces.
Considering the topic of the intentions and purposes of government and democracy, the task of providing competing views seems fairly easy; teachers may choose from many authors and pieces. However it is important to address a wide array of student needs and to appeal to different levels of comprehension in the classroom. Jigsaws allow teachers to select text excerpts of varying length and difficulty so that high achieving students may be challenged and low-performing students can be brought up to a proficient level. It is sometimes helpful to use both text and visuals to appeal to different types of learners within the same classroom. For this topic, finding a visual proves difficult, but there are many passages that provide varied levels of vocabulary to engage every learner.
The focusing question of the jigsaw will be "why do societies form governments?" Excerpts will be taken from Plato's Republic, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, Madison and Hamilton's conversation in Federalist Papers 9 and 10, and Abraham Lincoln's immortal speech The Gettysburg Address. A more detailed description of which segments should be used can be found in the Classroom Activities section. Following from the focusing question, groups of students will be asked to look closely at their assigned text and decide not only what makes society want to organize a government according to the author, but also what responsibilities a government has to the people it governs. Once each group has worked through their own excerpts, the students will switch and share information from their analysis with students who analyzed a different piece. This jigsaw provides a well-rounded perspective on the topic and helps the class to come close to answering the focusing question by employing all of the varying viewpoints in the texts.
Position Papers on Comparative Democratic Models
As proven by the Frayer model for defining words and concepts, people learn about things by identifying what it is and what it isn't. By the end of this unit, students should be able to judge levels of democracy not only by identifying characteristics of their own American democracy but also by examining what the American experiment lacks compared to other democracies existing in the world today. The position papers ask students to use one of the comparisons discussed in the rationale above and debate the pros and cons of the options presented. Furthermore, students will be asked their opinion as to whether or not America made a good decision in choosing to pursue one of the options over the other.
The paper will be formatted in five-paragraph form in order to maintain the expectation that high school students should be writing concisely and clearly with limited space on a given topic. The first paragraph will introduce the two options and present a thesis as to which of the two is a more democratic choice. The second and third paragraphs outline the pros and cons of the two choices, making sure to highlight specific examples of how each option is implemented in America and other democratic countries today. The fourth paragraph introduces the student's opinion of which alternative promotes a more democratic form of government. Lastly, the fifth paragraph summarizes the arguments made in the essay, reflecting upon America's chosen style of democracy.
Position papers allow students to exercise their critical thinking, research, and persuasive essay skills all at once. As with many of the other strategies discussed in this section, the position paper forces students to interact with the material presented in class through lecture and readings. The added bonus is that students are also asked to form their own opinions, incorporating the element of personal investment that can help to hook students who would otherwise find the material boring and out of their grasp. This topic specifically brings in another component of Social Studies education - connecting past events to the present and future. Allowing students to comment on what they see in the world today and validating their opinions because they are backed up with research sets a positive tone of acceptance and scholarship in the classroom.
Children's Book on the Results of the American Democratic Experiment
One of the true tests for having learned something is being able to teach it to others. Many students at the high school level are looking to create a bridge between the confusing language used in many textbooks and the simpler language that teachers use to make the material accessible. Having older students generate a children's book on what they learn is a good way to let students build that language bridge by themselves. They learn to convey an idea concisely and to use illustrations to supply nuances that the simple language can't always translate. This results in higher level thinking on the part of the students writing and illustrating the book and can also be useful for elementary teachers if the final products are shared with younger students.
The children's book assignment has students looking at the current results of America's democratic experiment and deciding where the institutions and processes we practice fall on the democratic spectrum. Using Dahl's criteria as a comparison, students will consider how Judicial Review, political parties, elections and representatives, and the amendment process all either help or hinder the growth of democracy in America. Students will be separated into groups and each group will have an institution with which to work. The goal is to describe the role of the institution in American government today as clearly as possible (illustrations should be used) and then to judge whether the institution facilitates the democratic process or encumbers movement towards a more democratic state. The language should be accessible to younger audiences and students should create their pages with the hope of teaching American government to a kindergarten or first grade class.
Having students work in groups to complete their pages allows for many different viewpoints to be considered for the opinion portion of the book. Students are not likely to engage in an activity where they are forced to regurgitate information that they have already learned - even if it is a good way to assess what they know. Taking the assignment a step further and asking for students to opine on what they have observed in the workings of the government brings interest to the fore. As an assessment tool, the opinion portion of the children's book allows teachers to see where the "public opinion" of the class lies and provides an opportunity to discuss the differences between how the US Constitution has outlined the role of the government and how a presidential administration might interpret the role of the government. The material brought up in the book is also a good way to bridge into election year conversation or to debate the merits of deliberative democracy (see Fishkin resource in bibliography).
Report Card on American Democracy
Perhaps the most important objective of this unit is to assess the success of the American democratic experiment. The reasoning behind this is not to criticize America's government; instead, students should learn to analyze the society in which they live with a clear picture of the rest of the world in front of them. The intention of the unit is to look at the roots of democracy, the first modern democracy, and more recent democracies with the object of ascertaining how close modern states come to reaching democratic ideals. While some of the assessment will be comparative by nature, American democracy can and should be judged against its own principles and how well it executes the democratic standards it sets for itself.
As with any assessment tool, students should understand that there are two ways to measure something: group comparison and personal growth. Both forms of assessment have their merits, but when referring back to the focusing question of the unit, "are we a successful democracy?" students should decide whether it is fair to pit America against other countries or if America should be judged by how well it meets scholarly agreed upon standards. A good compromise is to rate a few democratic nations separately against the standards with the intention of placing all of the countries on a "spectrum" of democracy. The appendix to the Democracy Sourcebook gives a few good ways to measure the democratic level of an individual state. A sample report card to be used with this unit is included in the appendices below. If the attached report card is used, students should be encouraged to write an essay detailing the explanations they give for the grades and how that reflects upon the democratic nature of the country in question.
The greatest skill that teachers can impart to their students is the ability to look at the world with a critical eye, assess biases, and make informed decisions with the materials at hand. Just as students are graded at the end of a term or year, so too should our government. It is important to remember that the objective of grading is to isolate things done well and things that need improvement in order to better focus the next term or year of growth. Today's students are the policy makers of tomorrow and should be encouraged to critically assess the direction in which our country is headed with a plan in mind for maintaining and improving democratic functionality.
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