Democratic Process

 

 

Unit Overview

Students will understand the foundations of the democratic electoral process. The unit begins with an overview of the country being addressed and the key principles of parliamentary and presidential democracy. Students will work in groups to represent a political party undergoing an election campaign and develop materials and strategies to gain voters. Students will present campaign material to an audience and will oversee the election process. Finally, students will reflect on the electoral process and the significance of citizen participation.

 

Personal Unit Overview: What did you achieve this unit?

Throughout this unit, we learned how a democratic campaign and election works. We pretended to run the Green Party, NDP, and Liberal Party of Canada, and had to advertise each of them. In the end, the selected leader of each group had to give a speech convincing the audience to vote for them. After this, the audience had to go to a different room where the teachers had arranged a voting-room, with booths and papers with the name of each party. All this gave us a very clear idea of how democratic elections work in real life.

 

 

Enduring Understandings: How do democratic political parties gain control of government?

To gain control of the government, political parties must work very hard and invest a lot of money into promoting their ideas. They make advertisements, give speeches, etc. Campaigning is key for a party to win an election.

 

 

Unit Standards

Process:

• Interpret central ideas and provide an accurate summary of sources while demonstrating relationship among ideas

• Integrate visuals and/or data to demonstrate analysis

• Evaluates multiple sources to synthesize and integrate information

 

Content:

• Analyze and describe the structures of states and governments

• Analyze and describe the causes and effects of citizen participation on state affairs

 

 

Area of strength: Which standard was your strength and why?

We did a good job with taking notes of what the plans of the Liberal Party were and including them effectively in our advertisement videos.

 

Area of growth: Which standard needs improvement and how can you improve for the future?

I think I should have dedicated more time to my speech, because although I included all the information necessary, it did not seem like I was really trying to convince people to vote for me. It felt like I was just listing out the plans my party had for Canada.

 

Evidence of Work: