Description
What our What is Democracy? lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: What is Democracy? teaches students all about this form of government. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify the core civic virtues and democratic principles that guide democratic governments. Students will have learned to differentiate democracy from other forms of government (monarchy, democracy, oligarchy, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism). They will also be able explain how democracy relies on people’s participation in civic responsibilities (voting, volunteerism, activism, and civil discourse). This lesson is for students in 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One optional addition to this lesson is to conduct class votes on various issues by assigning students to represent states and the Electoral College Votes, choosing a topic, and having the students vote; you can then count the popular vote and the Electoral College Vote, creating an anchor chart with both votes. Ideally, the topic you choose to vote will generate two different outcomes – the popular vote or Electoral College vote in contradiction with each other.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
What is Democracy?
The What is Democracy? lesson plan includes two content pages. The United States has a democratic form of government. Do you know what that means? Democracy is a form of government by the people. This means that the power is vested in the people, who exercise their power by voting.
Direct Democracy
In direct democracies, the government requires voters to approve of every decision they make by voting. In indirect democracies, voters vote for people to represent them, who then vote on their behalf when the government makes a decision.
Let’s look at a few examples of direct democracy. In a direct democracy, your class would vote on options for field trips; whichever field trip that got the most votes would be selected. In a direct democracy, your family would vote on where to get take-out food from for dinner. Finally, in a direct democracy, your community would vote to raise taxes in order to build a new school.
In direct democracies, the majority vote rules. This means that at least 51% of the voters need to agree on an issue before an action can be taken. For example, let’s say your class is taking a field trip. There are two choices, the beach or a state park. There are 25 students in the class. How many votes does it take to decide between the two field trip options? With a total of 25 students, you would need at least 13 of the votes to form a majority. Therefore, if 13 people voted for the beach and 12 people voted for the state park, your class would be taking a field trip to the beach!
When Direct Democracies Work
Direct democracies work really well when there are fewer people involved or the decisions have few choices. For most class, family, or club votes, direct democracy is the easiest way for groups to make fair decisions. However, for big decisions, direct democracy is always efficient. Let’s think about this! Do you want to vote on every decision your school board makes about how they spend money? How many pens, paper clips, scissors, or how much construction paper to buy?
Government leaders make thousands of decisions every day. Is it a good idea for everyone to vote on every one of them? Probably not. This would take too much time. In direct democracies, if you are not happy with a decision, the only way to change it is by convincing a majority to vote to make a change. This is why many governments and voters prefer indirect democracy.
Indirect Democracy
In indirect democracies, people vote for who they want to make decisions on their behalf. In this system, voters delegate (or give the authority for) someone else to decide on government matters for them. Another name for indirect democracy is representative democracy.
Voters still decide some big issues by voting, but they delegate their authority for decision making to elected officials in regards to the day to day operation of government. The United States is a representative democracy. Voters elect people to serve as city council members, county officers, legislators, governors, Congressional members, and the Senate.
Let’s look at a few examples of indirect or representative democracy. In the United States, people elect people to serve in Congress or the Senate and as Mayors, City Council members, County Officials, and Governors. Even the President is elected by the people to serve as a governmental decision-maker!
Pluralities and Presidential Elections
Indirect democracies don’t always require a majority to elect a person to represent the interests of voters. Many elections only require a plurality. A plurality is when a person received the highest number of votes but didn’t have enough for a majority. Plurality elections are the most common in the United States.
Let’s take a look at a recent plurality election, the 2016 Presidential Election. In this election, there were two main candidates, Hillary Clinton (Democrat) and Donald Trump (Republican). Clinton received 65,853,514 total votes (48%), but only 227 Electoral College votes. Trump received 62,984,828 total votes (46%), but 304 Electoral College votes.
In Presidential elections in the United States, voters elect representatives to the Electoral College. Each state has a certain number of electoral college votes, based on the size of the state’s population. Once the state tallies the votes, the electors (the members of the Electoral College) cast a vote for the candidate with the highest number of votes in the state. This means that, in Presidential elections, a person can have less total votes and a plurality, but still be elected President if they have the highest number of Electoral College votes. The winner needs 270 Electoral College votes to be elected as President of the United States.
WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The What is Democracy? lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
ELECTORAL COLLEGE ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity worksheet, students will read the given passage about the Electoral College. They will then discuss with a partner and the class a whole if they think Presidential elections should be decided by majority vote or decided by representatives of the Electoral College.
GOVERNMENTS PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet lists different countries in a chart and asks students to research each of them. Students will write down what type of government each country has and explain how that government is different from the government of the United States. The worksheet includes an example for students to reference.
WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
For the homework assignment, students will write a paragraph explaining why voting is important in a democracy, using examples.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet and the homework assignment. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
