It’s “I Don’t Care Friday!”

Hooray for Hoops and Yoyo and their fabulous days of the week!

Today’s lesson finds us beginning our unit on political parties.

Their first assignment is to make a vocabulary PowerPoint. It’s a little bit of a snoozefest, but I managed to cut down their “essential” word list from 25 to a much more manageable 10.

(I also let them know this, which means they were thanking me instead of groaning about it – it’s all in the presentation, people!)

The other part of the assignment has actually turned out really well. I’ve asked them to complete a little worksheet called “Finding Your Political Roots.” It was an activity in the textbook, but I typed it up in Word and then hyped it up a bit: “I’d like you guys to do this little political survey. It will help you figure out why you think about politics the way that you do.” Anyway, I’ve been really impressed with their responses. They have made a lot of thoughtful comments and far surpassed my expectations.

I’ve had several students tell me over the last couple of days that they are registered to vote (actually I believe the exact phrase was “signed up”) and will be exercising their right to do so next week. I am practically giddy!

All in all, it’s been a pretty good week. But then again, it is Friday. I can handle just about anything on Fridays.

Next week brings some interesting items that I’m not sure I’m at liberty to discuss just yet. Stay tuned!