TACKLING TECHNOLOGY & TEXT: Research and Presentation

Grade 8: Social Studies
Government and Civics

Lesson prepared by: Joseph Trentacosta M.A.T.

Macopin School

To effectively integrate computer technology in effort to supplement text content with Internet research and to support themes of citizenship emphasized throughout the 8^th grade social studies curriculum.

STUDENT PROFILE

Heterogeneously grouped 8^th graders.

25-30 students per class.

1) Understand and demonstrate the significance and importance of active participation in our government.

2) Evaluate and debate the advantages and disadvantages of our federal system.

3) Analyze the beliefs and opinions of our local representatives with regard to current issues.

4) Contrast viewpoints of democrats, republicans and other political parties.

5) Utilize the Internet as a tool to research and acquire information about political leaders, representatives and future candidates.

6) Successfully contact representatives via e-mail as a means to assess true understanding of concepts above.

7) Demonstrate successful social skills through traditional cooperative interaction with peers, as well as, "cyber interaction" with local representatives.

ACTIVITY

PEER RESEARCH

1) Students will pair up into "peer groups" to research via Internet and find information about our local, state and federal representatives and leaders.*

2) Students will work one "peer group" per computer.

3) Students will research and choose two current issues that they feel are significant in today’s society.

4) Students will find our representatives’ and leaders’ views on those two specific issues.

5) Students will choose one of the two issues and perspectives and will e-mail a representative of their choice.

6) Students will include the following in their e-mail:

a) Their background knowledge of current issue

b) Their understanding of that chosen representative’s perspective on that issue.

c) A question posed to that chosen representative as to how and why he or she developed that perspective.**

d) A request to be contacted, if possible, with an answer.***

*Teacher may pair students if necessary as a tutorial method or in order to prevent possible behavior problems.

**Students may ask the representative of their choice about his or her perspective with regard to a topic or issue that is new, because they may not be able to locate and find how every representative feels about each issue.

***If possible, given the technology agreements and restrictions.

Assessment will be conducted throughout the week using visual organizers about the federal system and word documents.

Final assessment will be a printed copy of their sent e-mail.

Positive reinforcement will be utilized to encourage participation during this activity, but more importantly, in their daily life, town, community and federal system.

5 days in computer lab (2 days research, 2 days e-mail, 1 day review/send)