Decision 2016 in American Studies — Part One
The Activity
Mike Andrews and Brad Rathe’s American Studies students spent the early part of the semester learning about the earliest political parties and the many issues facing our new nation. Now it is time for them to show off their knowledge during their first big project of the year: Decision 2016.
The objective of Decision 2016 is obvious: students are tasked with getting their candidate elected president of the American Studies class. In order to do that, they have to work closely with the other members of their political parties to ensure that everyone does his or her job in a timely and professional manner. One weak link could spell disaster for their party!
The Primary
Students worked together to run a campaign that consisted of the following:
- Identifying platform issues
- Becoming experts on those issues
- Preparing for and participating in the primaries
- Creating party name, symbol, and slogan
- Making a one-minute campaign commercial advertising their candidate to the class
- Designing a webpage using Medium to promote their party’s ideas
The winning party of each of the two primaries will then face off in the general election, when the entire class will elect a president based upon all aspects of the project.
Students’ grades consisted of many activities, brainstorm sheets, and writing assignments. Some were individual, and some were group grades.
The Results
The Conservative Candidate — Alyssa
The Opportunity Party “See opportunity, seize opportunity”
The Liberal Candidate — Zach
The Moderate Party “We the people, for the people!”
Zach & Alyssa are now tasked with working with their respective teams to help choose their Vice Presidential running mates. Those names will be announced Wednesday.
Stay tuned for Part Two!
