Create your own country in your classroom

Who’s Running the Country?
by Kerrie Sharron

Who’s Running the Country? is a major cross-curricular ‘Democracy Project’ on politics, democracy and power, suitable for those teaching Citizenship, English, PSHE, Geography and/or Social Studies at Key Stage 3, but adaptable for use at both KS2 and KS4.

Real life events witnessed by the ‘Arab Spring’ and its aftermath, are an ideal opportunity to engage and start children thinking about power and democracy. Using debate, scenario-based role-play and problem solving, students are able to empathise with the experience of different types of government. This process helps them to develop the necessary tools to debate issues arising in the political sphere.

Who’s Running the Country? introduces students to:

  • Different forms of government and the values underlying them
  • The ‘big’ themes of politics through an experiential, talk-based approach

The project is based around the class initially creating its own country and through newspaper articles and leaflets, they live a story of events that happen to their country and find that they are part of an ever evolving story of change. Their country goes through a period of anarchy, a coup, and a dictatorship, the growth of a revolutionary movement, a revolution and ends in democracy and elections. Students need to use their imaginations to be a part of this world and to participate in the changes happening to them.

The final project involves students creating their own ‘ideal’ government and gives the opportunity for them to apply their learning about values, processes and concepts from previous lessons and develop their own beliefs. This pack is successful in its simplicity. By focusing on basic concepts students can take away firmer and deeper understandings of meanings.

Emphasis on talk is intended to increase confidence and the ability to use political language, developing a wide range of speaking skills including, explorative, collaborative, combative, and persuasive speaking as well as presentation skills. An assessment criteria for assessing speaking skills is also included.

Students write a weekly diary for homework, which is a great way of distilling often largely talk-based learning. It ties them into the experience and can form an excellent form of emotional continuity, when a diary entry is read out at the beginning of each lesson.

The pack comprises of:
Teacher’s Manual
Book of photocopiable resources and activity sheets
2 x A3 full colour posters
CD of Powerpoint slides to accompany the lesson plans detailed in the manual, plus other resources

Pack price: £60.00

To order click on the link below to go straight to our online Teaching Times Bookshop
http://teachingtimesbookshop.co.uk/product/whos-running-the-country/

or call Customer Service on 0121 224 7599 or email: enquiries@imaginativeminds.co.uk

Changing the way that students think

What is an argument? What is a persuasive argument? What is a rational argument?

The fact is that no matter what subject a student studies at school, the ability to respond to any question with rational argument enhances that student’s chance of getting a higher grade.

Add to that the ability to see through illogical and irrational arguments and the student is heading towards an ability to construct arguments that are not only valid, but which impress any audience to which they are presented.

However, to achieve this the student needs to understand the difference between explanation and assumption, between evidence and example, between logic and appeals to “good old fashioned common sense”.

Which is why “Critical Thinking” has become a cornerstone of the teaching of thinking in so many schools across the UK as it helps students find their way through argument and debate and present their own ideas more succinctly and more persuasively.

In short, it explores what arguments are, what types of argument are valid, and what types of argument are anything but.

This new edition of “Critical thinking” analyses, in a manner that every sixth former can fully grasp, the way in which arguments are structured and the assumptions that are made in putting forward arguments.

Evidence and the truth, facts and judgement all come under the microscope, followed by an analysis of the limits of persuasiveness.

From here the students are encouraged to produce their own arguments in essays, reports, debates and the like, helping them be prepared to analyse their own thinking and improve their thinking ability ahead of the next point to be debated.

In short this is a book that is essential in the classroom; it will change the way students think, change the way they study and change the way in which they approach their exams.

The volume can be bought as a photocopiable book or on CD Rom.

You can see some sample pages at http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/english/T1821.pdf

Publisher’s reference:T1821EMN; ISBN: 978 1 86083 861 3

Prices:

  • Photocopiable report in a book: £29.95
  • CD with school-wide rights: £24.95
  • Both the book and the CD: £36.94

Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the report… please quote the order ref: T1821EMN