We the Teachers – Teacher Resources Blog

An artist's rendition of Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address

The quality of lessons found at Edsitement continues to amaze me.  If you are looking to harness the excitement caused by the release of Spielberg’s Lincoln and to use such to motivate students in your classroom, this website is the place to look!

The Gettysburg Address is one of the most famous and one of the most important speeches ever given by an American, president or otherwise.  This Edsitement lesson plan can help your students delve into the rich history surrounding this document.  This site is full of thoughtful, provoking questions, rare but effective documents, an engaging activities.

The lesson promotes itself to teachers in its “Learning Objectives” section.  The objectives are posted below, to give teachers a teaser of the richness of this site:

The White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue--the prize yielded by the result of the Electoral College process.

The last post centered on the Electoral College.  This post expands on that topic, offering a follow-up lesson.  As stated, the Electoral College is often seen as antiquated and is rarely understood by the general public.  The previous post centered on a PBS lesson was beneficial for introducing the subject to students.  C-SPAN has a lesson that can build on the basics of the PBS lesson, as teachers strive to educate students on the topic.

This C-SPAN lesson is advantageous for many reasons.  First, it utilizes C-SPAN videos of previous inaugurations and debates over the utility of the Electoral College.  Second, it challenges students to think on a deeper level  than the PBS lesson.  Lastly, it delves deeper into the Constitution than the PBS lesson and it has the student analyze Hamilton’s Federalist 68.  Taken as a second step, with the PBS lesson being the first, students that have also engaged in this C-SPAN lesson will be much better prepared to not only understand what the Electoral College is and how it works, but also to critically analyze its benefits and drawbacks.

The Electoral College certainly provides political pundits the opportunity to hypothesize ad nauseum.

Many students ask the question, “What is the purpose of the Electoral College?”  Questions abound about the utility of the system, about whether it is out-dated, about why America doesn’t elect presidents based on popular vote.  Answers to these questions require research and study.

PBS provides a useful website that includes a lesson plan concerning the basics of the Electoral College and to analyze its role in American politics.  Students are asked to delve into the National Archives site on all things Electoral College in order to understand how the operates, why it was set up that way, and what advantages and disadvantages surround it.  One of the positives of this lesson it that it allows students to draw their own conclusions. One drawback is its link to the Federal Elections Commission.  Essentially, students have to navigate around the FEC site without much direction, and they will end up at the exact same site as the National Archives link provided.

The 2009 Presidential Inauguration: President Obama being led through the oath of office by Chief Justice John Roberts

The Election of 2012 is coming to its official close.  The next step on the calendar in the process of selecting a president is Inauguration Day.  Edsitement provides a very creative and thorough examination of all things inaugural.  Titled “Inauguration Day: I Do Solemnly Swear,” this site contains analytical guiding questions, a wide range of materials, and extensive usage of primary sources, all the while asking the student to critically engage the content.  This could be the perfect compliment for teachers wishing to inform students of the importance of this civic ceremony.

There are five activities in this lesson.  They introduce the constitutional requirements for the oath of office (from Article II and the 20th amendment), the Founders’ debate on what phrasing should be included in the oath, and describes the celebrations of different inauguration days. At every step of the process, students are engaged with images and documents from the American past.

Henry Clay: Recipient of Spoils in a Corrupt Bargain?

Edsitement provides a very practical and useful lesson plan for teachers desiring to put current politics into historical contexts.

Controversy was to the Election of 1824 as losing to Ohio State is to Michigan–the first is ingrained into the fabric of the other.  The parties involved were not above descending into the mud-slinging fray.  While the Crawford and Clay camps were not noted as much for this, the Adams and Jackson groups were characterized by piling the political mud on with proverbial shovels.  For example, Jackson’s wife was labeled as an adulteress by Adams’ followers, while Adams was depicted by the Jacksonites as a dainty dandy that wore silk underwear.

It was the result of the election, however, that provided the most controversial substance.  There was no majority winner of electoral votes, so the election was sent to the House to decide.  Clay was out of the running, as he came in fourth.  Crawford died and was, understandably, out of contention.  The election in the House was narrowed down to Adams and Jackson.  The House swung towards Adams, allowing for the first son of a president to win that office.  Soon after inauguration, House speaker Henry Clay, who had been in a unique position to determine the election’s outcome, was named as Adams’ Secretary of State.   The Jacksonites cried “foul!”  They leveled corruption charges at Adams and Clay.

Was there a Corrupt Bargain, as the Jackson camp claimed?  This Edsitement lesson plan can help your students answer this question.  Additionally, with this context in mind, teachers may be able to compare today’s politics and the extent to which they are “clean” to real historical data.

Is this scene as confrontational as it seems when viewed in the light of the 1824 campaign?

History teachers could not help but chuckle when they saw this picture from the second presidential debate during the 2012 campaign.  In it, the incumbent Obama and the challenger Romney seemed to be sparring aggressively.  As confrontational as this picture seems, though, history teachers cannot help but laugh when they compare this relatively mild scene to the Election of 1824.

The Election of 1824 spelled the end of the Era of Good Feelings.  During the Monroe administration, it seemed to many Americans that partisan politics has eased significantly.  With the death of the Federalist Party as a formal body, there only appeared to be one political party in operation, that being the party of the Jeffersonian Republicans.  However, partisanship returned in full force when the followers of the two major candidates, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, began spewing vile at each other.  The Adams’ camp leveled charges of adultery, illiteracy, and homicidal violence at the feet of Jackson, whilst the Jacksonites claimed that Adams wore silk underwear, gambled, and had served as a “pimp” for the Russian czar. Indeed, both parties continued to duke it out even after the election, as charges were leveled that Adams had won because of a Corrupt Bargain.

Edsitement is a wonderful resource for teachers.  It includes a digital library full of lesson plans.  Here is one lesson that helps students understand the issues behind the Election of 1824.  Perhaps this lesson can help students have some context for truly partisan campaigns to compare to this current one.