State by State: Primaries and the Road to the Presidency
Teaching the Lesson

Grades 3–5

This lesson can be taught in 2–4 class periods and can be continued throughout the school year.

Lesson Introduction:
The focus for students in this age group is how states play a key role in choosing presidential candidates. Through group and individual investigations, students will practice their research and writing skills, as well as their note-taking and geography skills.

Background:
Explain to students that they will be exploring the process of running for President of the United States and how states play an important role in that process.

Hand students the KWL chart (PDF) and instruct them to fill out the chart as they start reading Scholastic News Online articles. To introduce students to the primary system, have students read the Primary System and Primary Time Line articles as homework.

Use the following Discussion Starters after the students have completed the homework assignment above:

•  What are primaries?

•  How are states involved in the primary system?

•  Why do candidates actively campaign during the primaries?

•  How do primaries help us choose a candidate to run for President?

A State's Place in the Race:
The primary system differs from state to state. Using articles and resources found on Scholastic.com's Election 2004 Online Activity, invite students to research their state's primary system. As part of their research, have students find out:

• Does their state hold a primary or a caucus?
• When does it take place?
• What type of primary does it have�open, closed, etc.? What do these terms mean?
• Were their parents able to vote in the primary? Why or why not?
• How many delegates does the state have? What are delegates?
• Has their state played a major deciding role in past presidential elections (i.e., Florida)?

Encourage students to continue filling out their KWL charts. Once students have completed their research, regroup as a class. Each student should present his or her findings to the class with either a student or the teacher writing results on the board. An area on the board should be devoted just to questions from the KWL charts.

New articles and features are always being added to Scholastic's Web site. Encourage students to periodically check in to get the most current information.

Extend the Lesson:
Transfer questions from the board to a bulletin board and encourage students to look for the answers to these questions as the election process continues. Assign different students to review the new articles added to Election 2004 on a weekly basis. They should look for articles that address the questions on the bulletin board as well as any new information on their state's election process. At the end of the week, the assigned student should present his or her findings to the class and add any new information to the bulletin board.

Additional Activities Can Include:

• Research past U.S. Presidents, Vice Presidents, and candidates who are from their home state.
• Research the different types of primaries (open, closed, caucus). To encourage critical thinking, invite a discussion on what type of primary students believe to be the most inclusive. Also, if they could change their state primary format, what would they change it to and why?

Cross-curricular Extension:
Art
Run a political campaign. Have students create posters or commercials for one of the political campaigns. Students should discuss which points they want to promote in their poster or commercial and how they want to present that information. If making a commercial, students should write a complete script.

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