Kauri Dynes | 8th Grade Civics 

Primary Elections (Unit 6, L4):

Background Information:
Students are in the middle of a unit on Political Processes, which includes parties, media,
and elections. Prior to this lesson, they have learned about political parties, the political
spectrum, and planks and platforms. During this lesson, they will learn about the Primary
election process and then review the electoral college, before working on their projects for
this unit.

Relevance:
Primary elections are an integral part of the democratic process in the United States.
Students will learn about the input they can have in the selection of candidates for each
part, and about the variety of types of candidates that they can choose from in any given
party.

Standard:
SOL CE.5 The student will apply social science skills to understand the political process at
the local, state, and national levels of government by
❏ describing the functions of political parties;

Objective:
Students will understand that they can influence our democracy both through voting in
general elections and helping to choose candidates during primary elections.

Materials/Links:
P​olitical cartoon​ for warm-up
Notes sheet
Prezi

Assessment:
Diagnostic: Begin with discussion, ‘What comes to mind when you think of “primary
elections?”’
This will help detect preconceptions and misunderstandings, such as mixing up primary and
general elections.

Formative: Ongoing questioning and discussion

Although the lesson is teacher-lead, it requires students to be involved to answer questions
and help with analyzing the charts. Students should contribute about as much as me to the
discussion, which will allow me to assess their learning and what topics are coming to mind
for them as we discuss the lesson.

Formative: Exit ticket

The exit ticket will be used to ask students to extend their knowledge through higher-level
thinking questions, as well as allowing me to assess what students learned.

Differentiation:
The Prezi is highly visual, and contains more information than students need to remember,
but should hold the attention of students at varying levels as well as provoke a variety of
questions.
  
Kauri Dynes | 8th Grade Civics 

The notes sheet helps students distill exactly what they need to learn from the presentation,
for students who may be overwhelmed by the details.

Finally, depending on class level, we will approach interpreting the charts that are the focus
of the Prezi in different ways: The gifted-ed block will be more self guided, while the other
two will have more teacher-centered questioning. All blocks will reaffirm good chart reading
procedures.

Procedures:
Warmup: See-Wonder-Think image exploration
Students will practice their political cartoon analysis skills through analyzing ​this political
cartoon​ using the See-Wonder-Think routine they have practiced through the semester.

Because this political cartoon is a commentary on elections, we will use it as a jumping-off

point for discussing the primaries.

Prezi:
Begin the Prezi by asking students, ‘What comes to mind when you think of “primary
elections?”’ Use this question to look for their current understandings or misconceptions
about primary elections.

Explain to students what a Prezi is, and give an overview of the structure of this Prezi, which
begins with a description of Primaries, flows to the Democrat and then Republican
primaries, and ends with the 2016 general election.

Give students time to write down the initial notes before discussing them.

Before looking at each chart, remind students to look at the title, any explanations of the
chart, and the key, before beginning analysis.

For the Democratic Primary chart, ask students what they remember, if anything, from the
2016 Democratic Primary.

For the Republican Primary chart, describe it in narrative form. Who are the players? Who is
doing well?

For the General Election chart, students will probably point out that Hillary Clinton won the
popular vote. Use this as an opportunity to review the Electoral College.

Finally, do an overview of the graphical nature of the notes sheet. Tell students they can
remember that the Primaries come first because [primero = first, Prim’s name was called
before Katniss volunteered, anything else they make up to help them remember...]

Exit ticket:
On a half sheet of notebook paper, please write your name and then answer the following
questions:
1. What is the difference between a primary election and a general election? (compare
and contrast)
2. Why should I vote in a primary election?
3. Review: In what election is the Electoral College used?