Last october, Brazilians voted for president and unlike previous elections, this one was marked by fearce and really nasty comments of the candidates about their opponents' character. Instead of talking about their platform, they attacked each other trying to make them look unreliable to the voters (which explains the opening remark in the video). Thus, I took this opportunity to assign a project for my teen students. Since they were learning the first conditional, they were supposed to pretend they were running for president and create a political platform in which they stated what they would do in case they won. They were supposed to use the possible starters below:
1) If you vote for me, I will...
2) If I win this election, I will...
3) If I have your vote/ support, I will...
4) If you give me a chance, I will...
When they finished writing their platforms, I proofread them and provided them with comments and suggestions. After that, the students used the school's IPads to design a poster, in which they would draw a symbol for their campaign, think of an "imaginary" party/number and come up with a catch phrase. The drawing app they used was DRAWP because it's super user friendly.
Once their posters were done, we filmed their platforms. I projected their posters on the data show screen and they stood before it. The videos are time consuming, therefore, I suggest that you assign this project to only one group of few students. I had 8 students In this class.
To wrap things up, we had an election in school. We set up a room with the video on, a ballot and voting slips displayed on a desk. Everyone going past the room was invited to go inside, watch the video and vote for one of the candidates.
My students enjoyed the project very much and took it very seriously every step of the way. In the end, the winner got a token.
