Teach the Election!
Happy September and happy back-to-school! With less than two months before presidential Election Day, now is the time to Teach the Election in your classroom!
Although most K-12 students are not yet old enough to vote legally, promoting civic engagement and teaching political history helps students better understand and engage with their local governments, develop media literacy, and foster lifelong civic and community engagement. Many students are naturally curious about the upcoming election, and some may even have developed strong opinions about particular candidates or policies based on their own communities or research. Leaning into this as an educator and teaching government structure, political history, and media literacy is thus a strong way to promote student inquiry in the classroom. Our classrooms should provide a space for students to discuss potentially controversial topics and express different viewpoints, while still centering civil classroom behavior. Here, we’ve listed some resources to help get you started.
Teaching Resources:
Through the leadership of the Yolo County Youth Civics Initiative, and with grant funding from the James B. McClatchy Foundation, the California History-Social Science Project, and the California Subject Matter Project, the YCYCI Civics units are designed to help students better understand and engage with their local government and foster life-long civic engagement. Unit Two, which asks “how can students become informed voters in both local and national elections?” offers particularly timely lessons for any high school students who may soon be approaching voting age. And Unit One and Three, which focus on local government and media literacy respectively, help promote civic action in other forms, both in and out of traditional political institutions.
Our Teach the Election series offers short readings, discussion questions, and primary sources to help students understand the historical context of today’s election. With a better understanding of the electoral process, students are more likely to participate! Students can explore the role of the media in our democratic republic. We have a new Presidential Debate worksheet. We will continue to release Teach the Election materials as we approach the presidential election, so make sure to keep your eye on this page!
Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice has several excellent resources for centering civil behavior in potentially divisive classroom discussions (as well as plenty of other civic activity ideas). Check out their Civil Discourse in the Classroom curriculum and create a Classroom Constitution. They also have advice for teaching complex topics with an unsupportive administration. Learning for Justice is a great place to start to ensure you’ve set up a democratic, civil classroom culture before moving into potentially divisive election conversations.
Recent Scholarship:
Kathryn Cramer Brownell, 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News (2023)
From Princeton University Press:
“24/7 Politics tells the story of how the cable industry worked with political leaders to create an entirely new approach to television, one that tethered politics to profits and divided and distracted Americans by feeding their appetite for entertainment—frequently at the expense of fostering responsible citizenship. In this timely and provocative book, Kathryn Cramer Brownell argues that cable television itself is not to blame for today’s rampant polarization and scandal politics—the intentional restructuring of television as a political institution is.”
Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics (2024)
From Princeton University Press:
“America’s political parties are hollow shells of what they could be, locked in a polarized struggle for power and unrooted as civic organizations. The Hollow Parties takes readers from the rise of mass party politics in the Jacksonian era through the years of Barack Obama and Donald Trump…With historical sweep and political acuity, The Hollow Parties offers powerful answers to pressing questions about how the nation’s parties became so dysfunctional—and how they might yet realize their promise.”
Paul Pierson and Eric Schickler, Partisan Nation: The Dangerous New Logic of American Politics in a Nationalized Era (2024)
From University of Chicago Press:
“In this paradigm-shifting book, political scientists Paul Pierson and Eric Schickler bring a sharp new perspective to today’s [political polarization] challenges. Attentive to the different coalitions, interests, and incentives that define the Democratic and Republican parties, they show how contemporary polarization emerged in a rapidly nationalizing country and how it differs from polarization in past eras.”
Alexander Keyssar, Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? (2020)
From Harvard University Press:
“Every four years, millions of Americans wonder why they choose their presidents through an arcane institution that permits the loser of the popular vote to become president and narrows campaigns to swing states. Congress has tried on many occasions to alter or scuttle the Electoral College, and in this master class in American political history, a renowned Harvard professor explains its confounding persistence.”
Picture Books #KatesBookClub:
Because of You, John Lewis: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship by Andrea Davis Pinkney. When young Tybre Faw discovers John Lewis and his heroic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the fight for voting rights, Tybre is determined to meet him. Tybre’s two grandmothers take him on the seven-hour drive to Selma, Alabama, where Lewis invites Tybre to join him in the annual memorial walk across the Bridge. Terrific story of a multigenerational friendship, and a great example of young activism.
Equality’s Call: The Story of Voting Rights in America by Deborah Diesen. A timeline of voting rights showing how enslaved people, women, and women of color were all denied the right to vote. Throughout the book, the demand for voting equality grows with the crowd. Many opportunities to use primary sources and recite the book’s refrain, - “But nothing could muffle Equality's Call: A right isn't a right till it's granted to all” - which could be especially powerful with younger students.
Fight of the Century: Alice Paul Battles Woodrow Wilson for the Vote by Barb Rosenstock. The fight for women's suffrage between women's rights leader Alice Paul and President Woodrow Wilson is presented as a four-round boxing match in this energetic nonfiction picture book. Great opportunity for a lesson on metaphors.
Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John Lewis by Lesa Cline-Ransome. John Lewis left a cotton farm in Alabama to join the fight for civil rights when he was only a teenager. He soon became a leader of a movement that changed the nation. Walking at the side of his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis was led by his belief in peaceful action and voting rights. Today and always his work and legacy live on.
Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio. After finding out there has never been a female U.S. president, Grace decides to run in her school's mock election, where she learns about the American electoral system and sets out to be the best person for the job even though her opponent, Thomas, seems to be winning all the boys' votes. Great way to introduce the electoral college to elementary students.
Granddaddy’s Turn: A Journey to the Ballot Box by Michael S. Bandy and Eric Stein. Beautiful story of the friendship between a grandfather and grandson. Unfortunately, Michael’s granddaddy never gets the chance to cast his vote due to voter suppression laws in the South. When Michael is able to cast his first vote, he brings a photo of his grandfather to the polls. Many opportunities to dig deeper into the voting roadblocks of the 1950s and 1960s and beyond.
Lillian’s Right to Vote by Jonah Winter. An elderly woman, Lillian, recalls that her great-great-grandparents were sold as slaves in front of a courthouse where only rich white men were allowed to vote. This experience led to Lillian’s long and determined fight to cast her ballot since the Voting Rights Act gave every American the right to vote. Lillian's story is told as a journey up a very steep hill. Along the way, Lillian meets the Civil Rights heroes who made it possible for her to cast her first vote. Would be a great way to teach plot - rising action, climax, denouement - to students. Connect to Voting Rights Act of 1965.
V is for Voting by Kate Farrell. An ABC book that introduces students and families to concepts like social justice and civil rights and reminds readers that every vote counts! Engaging illustrations and meaningful text. A perfect starting point for young citizens.
Voice That Won the Vote, The: How One Woman’s Words Made History by Elisa Boxer. In August of 1920, women's suffrage in America came down to the vote in Tennessee. If the Tennessee legislature approved the 19th amendment it would be ratified, giving all American women the right to vote. The historic moment came down to a single vote and the voter who tipped the scale toward equality did so because of a powerful letter his mother, Febb Burn, had written urging him to "Vote for suffrage and don't forget to be a good boy." Let's hear it for letter writing! A great example of the power of persuasive writing.
You Have a Voice by Vera Ahiya. You Have a Voice celebrates the power every child naturally holds in using their voice to make change for good and empowers both kids and grown-ups to use their voice. Written by a kindergarten teacher, this is the perfect book for primary students about equality, justice, and skin color, fairness, gender, hope, respect, and racism.