Electoral College Children’s Book

 Albert Einstein is credited with saying “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” That’s what Ms. Lacey, Ms. Lukasiewicz, and Ms. Massumi were thinking when they designed the Electoral College Children's book activity for their 8th-grade Civics students.  Faced with the challenge of explaining how a compromise at the Constitutional convention resulted in a system that combines the votes of states and votes of qualified citizens to elect the President, they decided to take Einstein’s approach and have their 8th-grade students, explain it to 5th-grade students.  

Students were assigned with research as the first step - first by looking in Article II of their pocket copy of the Constitution to see how the “electors” of the President are defined in the document itself.  They were then charged with digging into the details of the system.  What is the “electoral vote”? What is the “popular vote”?  How is the number of electoral votes determined?  How many are there?” Which states are “winner take all” and which split or share their votes? How many electoral votes does the winner need to win? What happens if there is a tie?

After they’ve gathered facts and checked them twice through “lateral reading”, students had to combine their imagination and creativity with their favorite characters from books they read when they were younger to come up with a story that a 5th grader would want to read, but could understand as well.  They had to then write the story, then combine it with their own illustrations or sketches to make a children’s book of their own.

As you can guess, there were a lot of favorites  - Scooby Doo, Sponge Bob, Paddington, and The Man in the Yellow Hat.  Harold and the Purple Crayon drew his way through the Electoral College to the White House and   Nemo “found” his way to the White House.  There was a lot of creativity and no small measure of artistry either.  Most important though, each student learned enough about the details of the Electoral College to write a story that a younger student could understand, and be entertained in the process.  

But there’s only one way to find out for sure - send the books to Lafayette and have the 5th graders read and review the books.  5th grade Social Studies engages students in US History, and they were just learning about the Constitution, so the timing was perfect.  Some students were hopeful that their younger siblings would get a chance to read the book that they wrote, others were deathly afraid of that happening.  “I’m gonna be wrecked if my younger brother gets my book!”

The 5th-grade students loved being book reviewers for a day.  They dug into the books and write to each 8th-grade author, telling them what they liked about this book.  They reviewed the visuals, storyline, and dialogue among the characters, describing how the book helped them understand the Electoral College.  The 5th-grade student book reviewers were able to tell the 8th-grade book authors what part of the Electoral College process the book made it easier for them to understand.