The Presidential Campaigns

First off, we have a final coming up next Thursday.  If you haven't seen the review guide, you can get a copy HERE.

In class, we learned about Nelson Mandela today.  I still haven't seen the movie Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, but I'm hoping to watch it soon.  ...Maybe this weekend.

We compared his life, and what he was fighting for to that of Gandhi.  There are many similarities.

The biggest thing I wanted to write about today, though, was the presidential campaigns.  We haven't discussed them that much, because even though they qualify as "social studies" they're not an integral part of the 7th grade curriculum.  There's so much we have to cover, and it would be easy to focus on them, and talk about them every day.

That said, I do offer unlimited extra credit in my class.  One of the ways students can get it is by watching or listening to relevant news.

I had a student turn in some extra credit on the presidential campaign, and I thought it was worth sharing.  She did a great job of writing clearly, and it is as unbiased as anything I've personally seen so far this election season.  Check it out:

I like that even though there are some minor grammatical mistakes, and a few cases where she's thinking of one thing and writing another, she's really trying to use a higher level vocabulary and in most cases, she's got it.

Here's what it says:

"Presidential Voting

There has been a lot of talk about the running for president.  Many people are either confused or argueing about who to vote for.  The 2 main representitives are Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton is a Democrat.  Her husband, Bill Clinton, was our president from 1993-2001.  Hillary, this means, was a first lady and has seen up close what it takes to run a country.  She is an intellegent and creative woman who could be our first female president.

Donald Trump is a Republican.  He is a politician, bussnessman and author.  Trump has never been up close on how to run the USA, but still knows what he is doing.  He believes that we need a wall between Mexico and the USA, which may help with immigrants but divides us from our southern neighbors.  

They are trying to win Indiana right now for the debate, which will give a boost in the election.  For once in such a long time our vote matters.  We need to make exceptionally intelligent votes to prove we have a say in the voting too.  Who will you vote for?"

In case you've forgotten, that's another way to get extra credit.  If I haven't written a blog post for whatever reason, you can watch, read, or listen to the news and get extra credit that way.  Just make sure you write me a couple paragraphs about it.

If you want extra credit for reading and discussing this blog post with an adult, take a couple seconds and talk about this post.  Then, write down some of the things you talked about.  Have the adult sign the paper.  Turn it in tomorrow in the extra credit tray.