by Dennis Jenkins
On Thursday, our class finished examining the presidency of Barack Obama by looking at major events and issues during his presidency. We watched clips from the 2012 presidential election and campaign commercials and political satire about the campaigns of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. The class also had a round-table discussion over executive orders and the Supreme Court case Riley v. California. Two of our students role-played the 2012 debate between Obama (Jonah) and Romney (Finn); they participated in a town-hall format in which students from the class played the roles of undecided voters asking each candidate questions that were prevalent during the election. Students also finished their research for their Mount Rushmore project. During the last part of class we had our semifinal round of our Presidential Legacy Tournament; today’s winners were Sean and Alexis.
On Friday, James Madison will take on Thomas Jefferson for the championship. We will also examine the presidency of Donald Trump tomorrow and have each student present their Mount Rushmore project.
Note: Teacher Dennis Jenkins will be posting updates on his course, Presidential Politics, throughout VAMPY.