Unit Overview:

Students will understand the foundations of the democratic electoral process. The unit begins with an overview of the country being addressed and the key principles of parliamentary and presidential democracy. Students will work in groups to represent a political party undergoing an election campaign and develop materials and strategies to gain voters. Students will present campaign material to an audience and will oversee the election process. Finally, students will reflect on the electoral process and the significance of citizen participation.

 

Personal Unit Overview: What did you achieve this unit?

In this unit, I've learned a lot of interesting things about what a political party does during an election. It was particularly exciting because our class had the chance to interview our teacher's friends—one was a campaigner for the Canadian Liberal Party, and the other was a pretty reknown writer who writes about Canadian politics. It was really cool to learn about politics with real-life examples. Another awesome thing we did was the Canadian election simulation. Our class was divided into 3 Canadian political parties, with my group being the Liberal Party. We all created platforms, campaign videos, campaign speeches, and posters. After all the advertisements, we asked the 10th graders to vote for the party of their choice in the election booths we created (there were even people who monitored the votings and check "passports" or "ID cards". In the end, the NDP (New Democratic Party) won. I was slightly bummed out but it was all good again when I found out that the Liberal Party won the actual Canadian election because I really liked the party and its leader, Justin Trudeau, who seemed like a great and competent leader. It was the only time I was excited about an election (I usually don't care about politics as I find it monotonous).

 

How do democratic political parties gain control of the government?

 

A democratic political party’s main goal is to win over people’s votes. Therefore, they have to undergo various processes and come up with unique and intriguing ideas that would appeal to the citizens. The first thing they would have to do is form the party and its image. It’s a very difficult process because even the smallest things, you would have to think about what the people would think about it, for example, the name, the logo, the slogan, the leader. After initiating a party, they would then have to utilize their people skills (psychological and social) effectively in the process of campaigning, which could seem endless. They also need to decide what they’re going to do for the country, and how are they going to run it? (This can be very overwhelming considering the amount of responsibility they must have.)

 

Area of strength: Which standard was your strength and why?

For this unit, I'm strong at understanding the central ideas behind government systems and election processes because they're really straight-forward, in my opinion.

 

Area of growth: Which standard needs improvement and how can you improve for the future?

The campaign video we made for our party (Liberal Party), prior to our Canadian election simulation, wasn't outstanding like the group that won because we didn't add a video of our party members in it. Therefore, for future projects like this, I would make sure that my work will be unique and exciting!