Presidential Election Coverage

We are a little behind in our discussions, but today (Friday 11/14) we talked about the current newspaper coverage on the aftermath of the election. We readthrough the paper looking for articles that discussed Obama, McCain, or activities that were occurring as a result of the election.

The article that most intrigued my 3rd graders was the article titled "Suddenly, Obama's everywhere - on T-shirts, mugs, buttons" on page A4. We discussed the importance of the articles and several interesting opinions emerged:

- because he is the first black President
- because he is one of our youngest presidents
- because the Republicans have held the office for 8 years and now there is a change
- because his supporters are so excited that he won
- because he has promised hope and change

I was surprised and impressed with their strong statements and explanations for why people are buying up items with Obama's image on them.

I also pulled up Ben Sargent's cartoon from Nov. 5th from the Statesman's website to talk about political cartoons. We discussed what a political cartoon was and how it was different than a comic. The students looked at the cartoon and we talked about what it meant. They quickly saw the images in the cartoon and recognized the storm aftermath, Uncle Sam, the storm cellar, and they saw that the rising sun was "Hope and Change".

Again, I was impressed by how well they are making connections and learning about how the newspaper can communicate and share information with the public.

We are not following all of the lessons exactly, but we are learning about the importance of news and newspapers during our reading and discussions.