gallup polls

My kids love this gallup website which allows you to compare presidential approval ratings. We examine trends, find patterns applicable to every term, and talk about where approval ratings need to be in order for reelection. We look at the ratings during times of crisis. I ask them to show me the spikes formed by major national events. They love it. They love looking at the similarities between Reagan and Clinton. They love seeing the jump from September 10th 2001 to September 14th 2001. It kind of blows my mind every semester. We wrap up the lesson looking at the gap between the R and D approval. It is a gap that is getting wider regardless of which party is in power. It leads to a great conversation about polarization in our society today. This semester I am trying to come up with some ideas about how to incorporate this website into a larger project, please share any examples you have of using  polls in your classroom!

Everyone is an artist!

I saw another blog mention ToonDoo, a site which allows you to make your own cartoons. Naturally I was thrilled. I love encouraging my students to draw, and this seems like an easy way to incorporate those who don’t feel exceptionally artistic. My first idea for utilizing this site in the classroom is to assign a project while we are learning the 27 amendments. I will let each student pick an amendment to illustrate. Here is one example I came up with:

I would love to use it on a more regular basis, but it will be a test and revise system based on how long it takes the kids to get the hang of the program. My hope is to be able to add this to their repertoire of tricks they can use in other classes.

another blog?

So a few years ago I jumped on the blog wagon with everyone else. I’ll be honest, it was mostly a way to procrastinate doing my work in graduate school. Well, it also served as a fantastic way to rant about stupid people, but mostly it was a procrastination tool. Then like 95% of those fools, I fell off the blog wagon about a year after I had joined up.

Lately though I’ve come to realize I am constantly searching blogs for useful tips and tricks for my classroom. I have found that there is one amazing blog for government teachers called creatively enough The US Government Teachers Blog (I mean it is really everything useful all in one place). Leaving this one blog out of the picture, I have found good government edublogs to be something of a rare species. I have stumbled across several blogs where the teacher uses the blog as an outlet for repressed political views that they don’t feel comfortable sharing in the classroom, and while that may be exactly what someone needs in a blog, I find that my personal life works better for political rants. I also have run across several outdated blogs that are full of links to websites that are no longer up and running. I know there must be more out there that I simply have not found yet, so partially I’m starting my own as a way to find those who are having this discussion.

So I’m starting a blog to share my experiences as a government teacher, and my goal is to focus on the teaching and how this stuff gets applied in the classroom, not simply to be another list of great internet resources. I want to keep track of my experiences and ideas, even though at times it might just be stories about how I used the tools that they are talking about over on the US Government Teachers Blog.