12th Grade: Introduction to Government ‖ Political Parties

Goals & Objectives

1. Students will be able to identify the different viewpoints both conservatives,
liberals, and those in between share on controversial topics.
2. Students will be able to compare and contrast the different viewpoints of
conservatives, liberals, and those in between.
3. Students will be able to classify where each political party falls on the political
spectrum.
4. Students will analyze statements of purposes of different political parties.
5. Students will collaborate with groups to create their own political party with a
statement of purpose

California State Content Standards

12.6.1 Analyze the origin, development, and role of political parties, noting those
occasional periods in which there was only one major party or were more than two
major parties.

Driving Historical Question

What are the origins, developments, and viewpoints of different political parties?

Lesson Introduction (Anticipatory Set/Hook/Accessing Prior Knowledge)

Students will start off the class by answering the following prompt: What political party do
you think you would join? They will have 10 minutes to write down their thoughts and
support them with evidence of their prior knowledge. Students will then get with a partner
and share their writings with one another. I will then ask for volunteers to share their
writing with the whole class.

Content Delivery (Method of Instruction)

Students will participate in class discussion that will be guided by Google Slides. Students
will be asked to define the best of their ability what is means to be liberal and conservative.
I will bring up different controversial topics that are commonly mentioned by politicians.
Students will have to determine conservatives and liberal viewpoints on each topic.
Students will get to ask questions to get clarification on both sides thinking. Students will
then observe where these political thoughts and parties fall on the political spectrum.

Student Engagement (Critical Thinking & Student Activities)

Students will be introduced to more political parties and content on their thinking through
the Political Party Statement of Purpose Assignment. The class will be dived into groups of
5-6 students to collaborate and design a new political party. The group members will read
through all the different statements of purpose and highlight at least one idea they like
from each of them. Students will have to work together and compromise to determine what
ideas should be added when contradictions arise. Then based off those highlighted ideas
groups will draft a party name and statement of purpose for their newly formed political
party.

Lesson Closure
Based off how well the groups are working together, they will either have the rest of the
class period to finish the Political Party Statement of Purpose or the groups will get to
share their new political party and read their statement of purpose to the class.

Assessments (Formative & Summative)

The Political Party Statement of Purpose will act as the formative assessment for this
lesson. Based off the statement of purpose they write I will be able to see if they understand
the different thinking of political parties and can relate them to their personal beliefs to
come up with something new.

Accommodations for English Learners, Striving Readers and Students with Special Needs

Accommodations are made as needed based off the understand of the level all English
Language Learners are at and their Individual Learning Plans. Examples of
accommodations would include using audio, visual, and kinesthetic learning to help all
learners understand the material and what is being asked of them. Another example would
be developing sentence stems to help students feel less anxious about what to write down
on their papers.