Elections are supposed to represent the will of the people. So why don't 100% of registered voters line up at the polls on Election Day? High schoolers study the last few elections and the voter turnout for each, according to race, gender, socioeconomic status, and education level, before creating a PSA to advise their peers to get out and vote.

Concepts

voting rights, voting, suffrage, elections, voter turnout, voter registration

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Additional Tags

social studies

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Instructional Ideas

• Use during an election year or in a relevant part of a social studies unit
• If you don't have time for the entire lesson, choose the most helpful parts to connect to existing curriculum

Classroom Considerations

• Lesson is scheduled for one week, but you can adapt the timetable for the needs of your curriculum
• Covers elections from 2004, 2008, and 2012; consider having groups look up specific numbers and statistics for later years
• The first step in the lesson prompts the teacher to project an image onto the board for learners to analyze, but the picture is part of an article that contains inflammatory language and points of view

Pros

• Auxiliary materials in the packet add value to any unit on voting rights and turnout
• Brings in primary source documents and opinion pieces
• Promotes conversation about an important and timely issue in learners' lives
• Involves teenagers in the voting process before they are registered to vote, instilling a sense of civic duty and pride for the next generation

Cons

• Lesson plan contains some grammar errors

Common Core

RI.9-10.1 RI.11-12.1