Lesson Plan Guide

Teacher Candidate:

Tremon Cockrell

Grade and Topic:

8th Grade Social Studies

Date: 12/8/16
Length of Lesson: 1 hour for 2 class periods

Mentor Teacher: Marla Phillips

School:

IDT 3600

UNIT/CHAPTER OBJECTIVE/GENERALIZATION/BIG IDEA:

The objective of this lesson is to have the students identify contributions made by the presidents from
Tennessee.

The students will be able to act as a U.S. citizen.

This will help the students to identify the rights, responsibilities, and privileges as a U.S. citizen

LESSON OBJECTIVE:
TLW be able to complete research on historical animals and create a concise, but thorough PowerPoint
presentation given the necessary tools such as Internet access.

Student Participation: The goal of this lesson is to introduce students to a higher level of research as well as new
ways to present information.

STANDARDS ADDRESSED:
State Standard
8.4. Spi.1
8.4. Spi.4
8.4. Spi.9
NETS*S Standard
Standard 3: Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate and use information.
BACKGROUND and RATIONALE:
Students will understand the three presidents significance in early America by exploring their life and
displaying their knowledge thought notes, and PowerPoint presentation.
Academic language is not cover in IDT 3600
The lesson will modified to meet the needs of diverse learners.
MATERIALS:
Videos: The White House website: www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents -you select the presidents
biography that you want from here.
Paper and pencils
Voting ballots with the names of the three presidential candidates

Final assessment worksheet

Computer with PowerPoint
PROCEDURES AND TIMELINE:
Introduction:
The lesson will be introduced by an open discussion about the students favorite presidents and
everything they may know about their favorite presidents. Then I will briefly explain the two-day
assignment to the students. This will last for about 5-10 minutes.

Procedures:
Day 1:
1. Inform the students about the activity. Explain that they will be voting for a president at the end of the
activity and answering questions for a grade.
2. Show the videos on the website whitehouse.gov the videos gives information on each of the three
presidents from Tennessee.
3. When finished with the videos, talk about some of the important accomplishments of each president.
Day 2:
1. Choose three students from the class to become the three presidents from Tennessee (Andrew Jackson,
James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson).
2. Choose one to two other students to work with each potential president.
3. The rest of the class will be the citizens. The citizens will vote for their choice of president at the end of
the campaigning.
4. While the three groups are working on their campaign information, the rest of the class (citizens) will be
reading a biography on each president.
5. The three presidential candidates and their team will work together to campaign and write a speech for
their candidate. These speeches need to be only two to three minutes. The speech needs to contain actual
documented facts that will come from the provided biography printout regarding the president or from
the video.
6.

Each team will campaign for their candidate. Give the three teams about fifteen to twenty minutes to
develop a speech. During this time the rest of the class will be reading a short biography on each
president.

7. In the campaign speech, the candidate will need to dramatically tell/read the speech to the class. The
speech needs to contain the following:
1. Name of candidate
2. Where he is from

3. What party affiliation he is

4. What are his accomplishments or other important information (good or bad)
8. When all three candidates are finished, the class will then vote for president. The class will be voting on
the ballot sheet for one of the following: Andrew Jackson, James Polk or Andrew Johnson.
9. The teacher will collect the ballots and have another student help tally the votes on the board.
10. The winner will then be revealed. At the end I would like to ask the students the following question,
Why did you vote for your candidate? I ask the question for each presidential candidate.
11. As a final assessment the students will create a presentation on one of the three presidents for each

group. Also, made a matching worksheet that has the students match the president with his information.
All the information on the worksheet should be covered by the teacher, video, biographies, and or the
speeches.

Closure:
In closing, the teacher will allow some students the opportunity to share some things that they
learned about their president.
I will discuss the importance of this lesson as well as the importance and use of PowerPoint.

ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE:
The teacher will walk around and listen to the three groups discussing the accomplishments and information
regarding the president they support as they develop a speech. The teacher may add any other information to the
speeches. The teacher will listen to each campaign speech given to the class for accuracy. The students will also
be assessed on their knowledge by completing a worksheet. This worksheet will be matching the president with
his accomplishments and/or personal information.
If they answered all 15 questions, correctly they will receive 100% for this part of the
assignment.
10-12 questions will receive 80%.
7-9 questions will receive 60%.
If students answered less than 10 questions correctly, further things will be taken into
consideration (i.e. a talk with the student and possibly allowing the student additional time to work on
this assignment).

Students will also be assessed based on their PowerPoint presentations because the technology standard is to use
digital tools to accurately gather, evaluate and use information.
Are all the questions answered through the presentation?
Is the information presented concise?
Is each PowerPoint slide simple and to the point?
Did students include 3 relatable pictures?
*This part of the assignment is worth 10 points.
A finished product should look similar to this Thomas Jefferson

Modification:
I am aware that the modifications will be made for students who did not master the objectives. However,
modification is not consider in the lesson.
Name ________________________
MATCH THE PRESIDENT
Directions: Match the president with his information. On the blank write JK for Jackson;
PK for Polk; JN for Johnson.
1. ____________He was the eleventh president.
2. ____________Born in Raleigh, North Carolina.
3. ____________Southern Democrat that was nominated by the Republican National Union Party
for vice president.
4. ____________Democrats said he was a candidate for expansion.
5. ____________Born in the backwoods of the Carolinas in 1767.
6. ____________Old Hickory
7. ____________Young Hickory
8. ____________Became president after the assassination of Lincoln.
9. ____________Known as the Dark Horse.
10. ___________Believed Texas should be re-annexed and Oregon re-occupied.
11. ___________Killed a man during a duel.
12. ___________He was the seventeenth president.
13. ___________House voted to impeach this president. He was tried by the Senate and was
acquitted by one vote.
14. ___________He was the seventh president.
15. ___________He had a tailor shop in Greenville, Tennessee.

United States Presidential Ballot

*Please vote for only one*
Andrew Jackson ___________
James K. Polk ___________
Andrew Johnson ___________