The American Presidency

Classroom Activities

Lesson One- Background

Objective/ Essential Question: What do I know about the President? What does the government do? Students will identify the powers of the president from the United States Constitution. Students will identify additional jobs not included in the Constitution that the president performs. Students will identify the powers of the Legislative and Judicial Branches from the Constitution.

In the first lesson, students will examine the first three articles of the Constitution for the background of the unit. First I will give the students an anticipation guide, (see Appendix B). This will set the stage to highlight the misconceptions the students probably have about what the president can and does do. Next I will give the students the vocabulary that will be used in the unit. I will use the VOC strategy to incorporate the students' prior knowledge and concentrate on the vocabulary they don't know. I will give them some background about the government, using a simple cartoon video, and a smart board presentation. Then the students will examine the parts of the Constitution where the powers of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches are listed. Students will work with a partner to try to interpret what the presidential powers listed in the Constitution mean. The class will discuss together.

Assessment: The students will make a diagram of the 3 branches of government and list the job responsibilities from the Constitution.

Lesson Two – A Simulation

Objective/ Essential Question: What does the President do? How do the 3 branches of the government work together? Students will simulate many of the governmental jobs that occur between the President, the Congress, and the Legislature. Students will reflect upon the selection process they used. Students will identify additional jobs that the President performs.

Create 2 or more Countries (This can be between 2 or more classrooms, or if not possible divide one classroom in half.) Countries can create a name and a flag. However, they will all use the U.S. Constitution and U.S. laws to determine their job responsibility and duties. They will use the Student Code of Conduct for their school district, (specifically the rights and responsibilities of students), to interpret whether any laws or treaties that they make are constitutional. Students will be given a list of job duties and responsibilities. There will be 2 Political parties: girls and boys. I will not go into a lot of detail about political parties, but I will let them experience them. (My instinct says that the girls will vote with girls sometimes, depending on the bill and sometimes they will vote with the boys. Actually this is similar to real political parties.) Each country will vote secretly for one of their members to become president. You can use a primary system, using an initial vote, then narrowing the vote to the highest 3 or 4 candidates and voting again. Each president will appoint 1-5 Supreme Court Justices, (Use 1 if you are only using one class, more if you have 2 or more classes). The rest of the country will be Congress. Divide the congress between the House of Representatives and the Senate, assigning more members to the Senate than the House of Representatives. The Congress will vote to approve the student or students the president appoints to the Supreme Court. The Congress will need to approve the appointee or appointees by a majority vote. If the Congress does not approve any of the appointees, the president will have to appoint a new person or persons and repeat the process.

The president will be given a card describing how he or she will act as president. (Later students will critique the way the president performed his or her duties, so this will prevent the student from personal critique.) You could tell one president to always vote with his or her party, and tell the other one to never vote with his or her party, or to always sign the bills the Congress passes or always veto the bills the Congress passes.

The president will create an agenda. The president will meet with other members of his or her party (boys or girls) in his or her country, to discuss the agenda. They will choose 4 rules or procedures to change in the school, such as students may wear hats in school, chew gum in school, or use cell phones. The president will make a budget. The teacher will give him a figure to use. The president will prepare and give a speech to the congress to present the budget and the proposals, the State of the Union.

Congress will approve, change, or reject the budget. If they reject the budget, they have to make a new one. Congress will decide to vote for the legislation the president proposes and may also create proposals for new school rules. They will vote on the proposals, (bills), in each house.

While the Congresses are working on their budget and proposals, give a card to someone in Country 2 telling them to take something from country 1, such as a pencil.

The president from Country 2 will decide whether to attack Country I. (The president needs to consult his or her duty card to determine what he or she is allowed to do.)

While Congress is making bills, give the president a card that says he or she needs to go to the other country to talk to their president about how things are going. Later, give the president a card that says he or she needs to go to the office to represent the country at the U.N. The U.N. can be the teacher or the school principal's office.

Each Congress will give their presidents the bills they have passed. The president will decide whether to sign them or not. (If he or she is the president who is voting with the party, they need to find out how his or her party voted to determine whether he or she will sign the bill or veto it.) If the president decides to veto the bill, it goes back to the Congress who can vote to overrule the veto- but they need two thirds of their total to override the veto.

The Supreme Court will be given the bills signed to determine if they are constitutional. Constitutionality will be determined by comparing them with the Student Code of Conduct Rights from the school district. The Supreme Court will meet and make their decisions. They will have to vote, write the decisions, and deliver them to the president.

The president from Country 1 will negotiate a treaty with Country 2, and then both presidents will take the treaty to their congress to approve or not approve. The treaty can be something like how to share something in the room, or how to share a space in the room.

After the simulation, the entire class will discuss the simulation. What were their reactions? How did things go? What impressions did they have? Finally, after the simulation, each student will reflect on how they voted for president, at the beginning of the simulation. What did they consider when they voted? Did they vote for the party (boy or girl)? Did they vote for their friend? Did they vote for something else? How did that work out? What were qualities that were helpful or not helpful? Discuss the actions that were taken by the president and the other roles.

Assessment: The students will revisit the diagram from lesson one and add responsibilities, working with a partner. Students will also write a reflection from the simulation, reflecting on how they voted for president, and how well they thought that worked with the functioning of their country.

Lesson Three – Selecting a President

Objective/Essential Question: How should citizens select presidents? Why should voters vote for a president? Students will select a presidential candidate using a decision grid. Students will write an opinion paper in the form of a candidate's speech for election, using concrete examples based upon how the candidate supports identified issues and personality qualities the candidate possesses.

The students will be presented with two different ways that could be used to select a president. I will show them the information on the website http://2012-presidential-candidates.findthedata.org/compare/1-5/Barack-Obama-vs-Mitt-Romney. (There are a number of similar websites.) I will show them how to use a decision-making grid to evaluate the candidates based on the information about the issues. Next, I will give them information from the Steven J. Rubenzer, Ph.D., and Thomas R. Faschingbauer, Ph.D book. I will share with them how the authors conducted a study of successful presidents and then compiled a list of personality traits which correlated with the successful presidents. I will give the students the following edited list of traits that correlate with successful presidents: achievement striving, (setting goals), impulsiveness, intelligence, excitement seeking, stubbornness, and being self-disciplined. I will share with them that the authors found that being conscientious, being competent, particularly cooperative or honest were not strong traits for successful presidents. I will share with them that it might be hard to evaluate if a particular candidate has one of these traits, so they should not vote + or – for traits they don't think they can evaluate. The students will use the grid to evaluate the two candidates, using the personality traits. Then I will ask the students to make a presidential selection based on both of the two methods. They will then participate in a mock election.

In years between presidential elections, students may use the same candidates from the previous presidential election, or may choose local gubernatorial, senatorial, or representative elections, modifying as necessary.

After students have selected a candidate to support, they will write an opinion paper to support the candidate of their choice, writing the paper as if they were the candidate. Students will be grouped with a partner who is supporting the same candidate in order to plan their papers together. The students can list and prioritize their supportive reasons and examples before writing their papers. In addition, after writing, students will work with peers to give feedback to improve their papers. Finally, the students will be split into 3 groups. In each group, the students will read their papers out loud, to the group, as if it were a speech. (This will culminate their experiences of an acting president.)

Assessment: The assessment will be the student opinion papers as well as the oral presentations.