The lesson plan below is intended to work with elections covered by ProCon, but may be adapted to work with other elections.
Objective:
Students will explore candidate positions while examining and categorizing the nuance of the candidate’s opinions.
Students will:
- examine political positions
- categorize opinions
Resources/Materials:
- ProCon.org election coverage
- ProCon.org’s Candidate Comparison Chart
Preparation:
- Teachers may want to assign part or all of this assignment as homework
Activity:
- Students should examine the candidates’ positions on several questions within a sub-issue (crime & justice or healthcare, for example) provided by ProCon.org and create their own side-by-side comparison chart.
- Students should consider whether the candidate is pro or con, as well as delve into details and nuances about policies (for example, is a candidate against legalizing marijuana federally but pro allowing the states to legalize versus against legalizing marijuana at all). This should be reflected in their charts and will result in more categories than pro and con.
- Optional: Students should then analyze their charts to form a more complete and nuanced picture of the candidates’ platform on the chosen sub-issues. For example, is there a spectrum of opinions on the topic within the pro or con side? Is a candidate not answering parts of a question and why?
- Optional: Students may research a topic ProCon.org has not covered and create a pro/con comparison chart.
Evaluation:
- Ability to categorize positions
- Quality of comparison chart
