Theme 10: Civic Ideals and Practices
DiPucchio, Kelly, and Le Uyam Pham. Grace for President. Disney/Hyperion Books, 2012.
F
Summary:
Grace for President is a book about a girl named Grace who learns there has never been a female president, so she decides to be the first. Her grade starts a campaign for president and she is up against the most popular boy in the school. They held an election and Grace won by only one vote.
Rationale:
Grace for President gives the opportunity for educators to teach students how to have a participating citizen in a democratic society. Students learn about the importance of voting and how voting works, which is exercising the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
Discussion Questions
1. How does a presidential election get tallied? What are electoral votes? How many does one candidate need to win?
2. What strategies do presidential candidates use to get people to vote for them?
3. Why hasn't there been a female president? Will there be?
4. What do people do on voting day? How old do you have to be?
5. What would be your campaign promises if you were president?
6. Does each vote matter? Why?
Extension Activity
For the extension activity, students will hold their own class election. This can be done in many ways and can include didn't jobs/duties students want or anything else as a privilege for the election. This can be done this same way the book divided everyone into states and gave them their piece of paper with the electoral votes.
Digital Resources
iCivics supports students to be informed and civically engaged by teaching civic education. They do this through the use of games. Many of the games take a half-hour plus, so time must be planned out to complete those games.
KidCitizen has episodes where students explore civics and government concepts by investigating photographs from the Library of Congress. They also connect what they find to their daily lives.
The Center for Civic Education provides teachers with ebooks, lesson plans, textbooks, resource materials, short videos, and more. It's a great resource to get started with a lesson or concept.