Drawing current events into lessons is one of the strengths of social studies education.

Students have a hard time arguing I am never going to use this in real life when their teacher gives them the opportunity to discover their field of study's relevance. The twenty-five minute lesson that I will describe in subse uent paragraphs came the day after I introduced my eleventh-grade government classes to public opinion formation and polls. I had used lecture and document analysis as a means of teaching the students the various aspects of poll creation and evaluation. !s a starter activity" I presented the students with two graphs #see below$. I instructed them to loo% at the graphs and draw conclusions about their purposes and meanings. I did this because I wanted my students to get hands-on e&perience with scientific poll analysis. The goal of the lesson was not only to cover Standard SS'()d" but also to unveil the material's relevance in the students' lives and to enable students to thin% critically about how beliefs are formed. !fter students e&plained that the graphs showed that *.S. public opinion about +ussia and ,ladimir -utin had ta%en a negative turn" I as%ed them to define the previous day's terms #universe" sample" etc.$. I wanted students to do this so that I could perform an informal formative assessment about their grasp on the previous day's material. They defined the terms with ease by raising their hands and spea%ing in front of the class. This time also served as a review for students who were struggling with the previous day's material. I used e&tra credit tic%ets as rewards for thoughtful answers to encourage students to respond. I used these tic%ets sparingly in class because I did not want students to see an e&trinsic reward as their sole motivation for participation. .owever" the tic%ets did increase the amount and uality of student responses when used in moderation. I also limited each student to one response so that the more outgoing students would not e&perience grade inflation by accumulating a wealth of bonus points and so that uieter students could actively participate and become invested in the lesson. /nce I felt satisfied that the students could define the terms" I as%ed them to apply their %nowledge by brea%ing down the poll into the individual components. I found that although the students had the definitions memori0ed" a few of students were having trouble understanding the nature of sample-ta%ing. I tried my best to e&plain how to poll a scientific sample to these students" but I felt afterwards that I did a poor 1ob. I spo%e with these students during an independent wor% period to provide supplementary instruction. !nother student had trouble distinguishing the differences between straw votes and scientific polls. .e claimed that the polls that we loo%ed at were straw votes because their samples were random. I tried to e&plain that thoughtful random sampling was a common scientific practice. I could tell that the student felt embarrassed" so I made sure to remind him that the material was new and I did not e&pect anyone in class to be a master of it yet. I also tried to encourage him by praising his boldness in front of the class and giving him a tic%et for his critical thin%ing. 2e&t" I led the class through a series of visual prompts that helped e&plain why *.S. public opinion of +ussia and -utin was falling. The visual prompts included pictures of 3dward Snowden" the Sochi olympic rings malfunction" a map of Syria" and +ussian police restraining gay-rights protesters. 4ith each prompt" I as%ed students to thin% about the news and describe the image's content and why it would affect *.S. public opinion. This activity served to provide students with information that they could use to ma%e connections between the concept of public opinion and the real-world situations that shape it. I also intended this portion of the lesson to intrigue students and motivate them to pay attention to world events. /ne of my struggling students recogni0ed Snowden and e&plained who he was to the class. I praised him publicly" and on his way out the door for lunch I praised him again individually. I wanted to encourage him to spea% more and to increase his investments in class conversations. I supplemented his response by e&plaining why *.S. opinion on +ussia would change because of Snowden. 4e continued this process for three more images. I found that although at least a few students had prior %nowledge about the story behind each picture" they needed me to go more in depth to fully

understand. I do not normally try to be the sole source of information in the classroom. I made an e&ception in this case because the information that I provided was a means to an end" not the final product itself. I e&plained the content of each prompt and how !mericans responded so that students could be prepared to thin% critically about political sociali0ation. 4hen student responses began to get off-topic" I redirected focus to the definition of political sociali0ation" a term we had wor%ed with the previous day. I stopped class until someone who had not spo%en yet volunteered the definition. The volunteer did a great 1ob" and I repeated her answer to ensure that her classmates heard it. 2e&t" I as%ed students to continue accessing prior %nowledge by recalling the different causes of political sociali0ation. They did a good 1ob listing each factor in e&change for tic%ets. I as%ed these lower-level thin%ing uestions as a means of reviewing material and informally assessing students' memories of the previous lesson. I was very satisfied with the responses. I supposed that this portion of the lesson would serve as scaffolding for the upcoming application portion. Students were uite ready when it came to the final uestion of the activity5 4hich of these factors do you thin% helped form *.S. public opinion about +ussia6 7y scaffolding proved to be surprisingly effective. Students came up with three factors instead of 1ust the one that I e&pected. /ne student cited historical events as the cause of the public opinion shift. I had e&pected students to recogni0e that the visual prompts represented historical events" so his answer was satisfactory. !nother student cited mass media as the culprit and defended his answer with evidence. .e said that if it were not for mass media" !mericans would not %now about the historical events. 8inally" a student made the assertion that perhaps family was a ma1or cause of the political sociali0ation that we were studying. .e claimed that as news about +ussia became more relevant" older generations could share their 'old 4ar memories" influencing younger relatives' views. These insights demonstrated critical thin%ing and a mature understanding of political sociali0ation. Students drew conclusions that I had not even considered. I considered this lesson a success. I thin% that drawing on student %nowledge of world events created a strong connection between class material and student e&periences. This satisfied my first goal" to ma%e the concepts of public opinions and political sociali0ation relevant. I believe that the lesson satisfied my second goal as well. Students' comple& statements about political sociali0ation astounded me. I thin% that as a result of the scaffolding prior in the lesson" my pupils engaged with a difficult concept and achieved some degree of mastery over it. In hind sight" I wish I had e&pounded on this growth and challenged students to consider their own beliefs' origins. 4e could have also had an interesting discussion about whether or not e&ternal origins ma%e ideas lose value.