Contemporary U.S. – Everyday Americans, Exceptional Americans https://chnm.gmu.edu/tah-loudoun A Teaching American History Project with the Loudoun County Public Schools Mon, 14 Apr 2014 12:20:11 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Comparing and Contrasting Soviet and American Space Craft https://chnm.gmu.edu/tah-loudoun/blog/lessons/comparing-and-contrasting-soviet-and-american-space-craft/ https://chnm.gmu.edu/tah-loudoun/blog/lessons/comparing-and-contrasting-soviet-and-american-space-craft/#respond Thu, 20 Dec 2012 19:44:02 +0000 http://chnm.gmu.edu/tah-loudoun/?post_type=lessons&p=948 Students will identify similarities and differences between the Soviet and American spacecraft and discover why the designs impacted the success of the United States in landing a human on the moon. Students will analyze photos of Soviet and American spacecraft …

]]> Students will identify similarities and differences between the Soviet and American spacecraft and discover why the designs impacted the success of the United States in landing a human on the moon. Students will analyze photos of Soviet and American spacecraft and complete a “What do you notice? What do you know? And What questions do you have” graphic organizer on both spacecraft photos. Students will work with a partner and share their observations with the whole class. The lesson’s discussion would hinge on a group activity using a Venn Diagram and index cards as the students make observations about what the spacecraft’s similarities and differences were. The final assessment piece would be that the students would design a newspaper article or cartoon and have the option to either 1) draw and label (cartoon) or 2) write a few sentences about (newspaper article) the Soviet and American spacecraft and include in the drawing or paragraph at least 3 differences.

]]> https://chnm.gmu.edu/tah-loudoun/blog/lessons/comparing-and-contrasting-soviet-and-american-space-craft/feed/ 0 Analyzing Political Campaign Commercials https://chnm.gmu.edu/tah-loudoun/blog/lessons/analyzing-political-campaign-commercials/ https://chnm.gmu.edu/tah-loudoun/blog/lessons/analyzing-political-campaign-commercials/#respond Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:04:48 +0000 http://chnm.gmu.edu/tah-loudoun/?post_type=lessons&p=897 In this activity, the students will analyze four political campaign commercials to understand some of the roles of political parties as well as how citizens make informed choices during elections. Two of the commercials are from the 2004 presidential election …

]]> In this activity, the students will analyze four political campaign commercials to understand some of the roles of political parties as well as how citizens make informed choices during elections. Two of the commercials are from the 2004 presidential election and concern the war on terror. The other two commercials are from the 1964 presidential election and concern the Cold War. The students will examine these commercials from two perspectives. One perspective is that of a presidential election campaign staff member, which will help the students to learn how campaign commercials are used as a tool to educate voters and to help candidates win elections. The students also will analyze the commercials from the perspective of a voter to further understand four ways that citizens make informed choices in elections: by separating facts from opinions, detecting bias, evaluating the source of their information and identifying propaganda.

For the assessment piece, the students will create their own campaign commercials for the 2012 presidential election. The commercials will reflect their understanding of the roles of political parties during elections and the ways in which voters make informed choices during elections.

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