Teaching Tips on Four Campaign Issues

The New Jersey Press  Foundation, on behalf of New Jersey's Newspaper in Education programs, prepared four pages of teaching tips about the issues on the 2008 national Mock Election ballot.

The content of those pages, much of which is still on the minds of Americans, offers teachers some ideas for student projects as they prepare to vote in the 2010 Mock Election. The topic "Immigration" replaces the "U.S. Involvement in the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan" and a teaching tip sheet on that new topic will be available soon.

The suggestions on these pages are intended only to "prime the pump," so to speak ... to get the ideas flowing for other, and likely better, projects and activities students can do between now and the Mock Election.

They are presented as a way of stimulating a degree of enthusiasm, even excitement, about the process of decision-making and voting.

A recommended exercise for all of these issues themes is to have students write essays, articles, and opinion pieces (editorials). Teachers and/or students then can submit them to the Youth Issues Forum for publication. Please click here for information about the Youth Issues Fourm and examples of what students have written.

Teen Voices of Democracy encourages teachers to send us their feedback and other ideas they have about activities related to the four issues.

The four issues pages are:

1. The U.S. Economy

2. U.S. Involvement in the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

3. The Energy Crisis

4. Healthcare Policies and Costs