Primaries and Caucuses Lesson Plan: Civic and Political Institutions

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This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Primaries and Caucuses, and supports the standard of distinguishing the powers and responsibilities of citizens, political parties, interest groups, and the media in a variety of governmental and nongovernmental contexts. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students:

• What are some responsibilities of U.S. citizens?
• Why do you think it’s important to vote in elections?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

• Read the description on the Primaries and Caucuses topic page.
• Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding.
  

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign Primaries and Caucuses Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about primaries and caucuses while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

• Make-a-Movie: Produce a tutorial explaining the structure of primaries and caucuses, and identify the roles of candidates and citizens in each process. 
• Make-a-Map: Identify the timeline of events leading to a general election.
• Creative Coding: Code a learning game challenging players to sort terms as relating to primaries or caucuses.

More to Explore 

Time Zone X: Primaries and Caucuses: Place historical events in chronological order in this interactive timeline game.

Cast Your Vote: Apply knowledge of the civic institutions to act as an informed voter in a primary election.

U.S. Government Unit: Continue to build understanding around civic and political institutions by exploring more BrainPOP social studies topics.

Teacher Support Resources:

• Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students to stop, think, and express ideas. 
• Learning Activities Modifications: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
• Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.