Write and Respond: Democracy

Educator Toolkit: Peoples Guide to the Federal Budget

Activity Type: Group
Chapter: All
Objective: Students will be able to express their ideas, feelings and questions about democracy in writing and verbally.
Description:

Write and Respond is a pre-reading activity and is generally used to introduce a lesson or unit by focusing the class on one concept or idea.

  1. The teacher posts a statement at the front of the classroom and students write about what the statement means to them, what it makes them think about, and what questions they have about it, for five minutes.
  2. Afterward, students find a partner and share for two minutes each what they wrote during the exercise.

Sample Prompts:

  1. “Democracy is not a spectator sport.” – former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
  2. E pluribus unum “Out of many, one” – phrase of the Seal of the United States
  3. “Taxes, after all, are dues we pay for membership in an organized society.” – former President Franklin D. Roosevelt
  4. “Think about the America within our reach…” – President Barack Obama

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