Lesson Plan: Political Parties

by Apathy is Boring — March 31, 2010

Political parties are an essential component of Canadian democracy - they influence which issues are discussed and control how legislation passes through Parliament. This lesson will help students understand how parties shape the democratic process and offer potential ways to become involved with a party.

Learning Goals

After this lesson:

• Students will be able to identify the major Canadian political parties
• Students will be able to place the major parties on the political spectrum
• Students will be able to identify their MP's party affiliation
• Students will understand how to become involved with a political party

The goals of a lesson will obviously vary based on your classroom and curriculum, so feel free to adapt these suggestions to your students. You'll also find curriculum links at the bottom of this page, which can help you identify other learning goals for this lesson.

Pre-assessment and Resources

Take a moment to evaluate your students' current level of knowledge and connections they already have with political parties. These connections can serve as your "hook" to introduce the lesson. Remember that connections don't have to be too specific: have your students learned about political ideologies before? Do they know which parties the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Official Opposition belong to? Are your students' parents members of parties or other political organizations? Have they ever seen lawn signs in their neighbourhood during an election campaign?

Citizen Factory lists the party affiliations of MPs and Senators. The Apathy is Boring website provides information and links for Political Parties, along with articles explaining Canada's democratic process. There is also a PowerPoint presentation PowerPoint presentation to accompany this lesson plan, which can help you present the material in a classroom setting. Feel free to alter it to suit your needs.

Introduction

Try to use your hook to introduce the lesson, and see what knowledge your students already have about political parties.

Activity: Canada's Federal Political Parties

The goal of this first activity is to have students identify the major political parties and place them on the political spectrum.

Divide your students into five groups of roughly equal size. If you want to expand the activity to discuss more parties, we recommend a maximum of seven groups.

Assign a federal political party to each group, starting with the five major parties. If you're including seven parties, we recommend assigning the Communist Party of Canada and the Libertarian Party of Canada to the other two groups.

Have your students visit the Political Parties section of the Apathy is Boring website and read the section for their party. Ask each group member to identify an item from the party's platform.

Draw a political spectrum on a chalkboard or flip-chart for your students. Based on their level of previous knowledge, you may want to explain or reiterate the basics of the spectrum to your students.

Ask one student from each group to place their party on the spectrum. Then, ask the other group members to justify this placement using the item they identified from the party's platform. As each group goes explains their placement, you can prompt them by asking for comparisons to the items explained by other groups.

Activity: What's Your MP's Party?

The goal of this activity is to have students identify the party their MP belongs to, and how this influences their actions in Parliament. To prepare for this activity, you may want to look up which parties hold the ridings for your school district.

Have your students visit Citizen Factory and look up their MPs by postal code. Ask your students which party their MP belongs to.

Ask your students to look at their MP's recent voting record. Ask them to choose a specific vote on a bill or motion, and note when it occurred.

In a new browser window, ask your students to look up the leader of their MP's party and find the same bill or motion. Next, ask them to repeat this task with two MPs from other parties.

Ask your students to compare the votes of the different MPs. Who voted for the bill or motion? Who voted against it?

Based on their descriptions of the different parties from the first activity, ask your students to explain why members of different parties would disagree on a vote.

Activity: What's Your Party?

Have your students read 10 Ways to Choose Your Political Party. Based on this article and what they have learned in the previous two activities, ask your students to vote - either by show of hands or ballot - for the federal party they most agree with.

Next, compare your students' votes with the 2008 Federal Election results (listed below). Ask them what the House of Commons would look like if they had been the electorate.

Bloc Québécois - 10.0%
Conservative Party of Canada - 37.6%
Green Party of Canada - 6.8%
Liberal Party of Canada - 26.2%
New Democratic Party - 18.2%

Have your students to read How to Join a Political Party. Ask them to choose one thing they could do to support their party of choice, and why they feel it would be effective.

Conclusion

Encourage your students to take action based on the third activity, be it by voting or becoming directly involved in a political party. You can also use Decoding the Cabinet to link this lesson about political parties to a discussion of how Parliament operates.

Assessment

Evaluate whether or not the lesson achieved its goals, as well as your specific goals:

• Were students will be able to identify the major Canadian political parties?
• Were students able to place the parties on the political spectrum?
• Were students able to identify their MP's party affiliation?
• Can students name at least one way to learn about or become involved with a political party?

Curriculum Links

The following links are drawn from the British Columbia Ministry of Education’s Civic Studies 11 curriculum, which aims “to enhance students’ abilities and willingness to participate actively and responsibly in civic life.” They provide examples of civics learning goals that can be integrated with this lesson plan, and Citizen Factory in general.

It is expected that students will:

• Apply critical thinking skills – including questioning, comparing, summarizing drawing conclusions, and defending – to a range of issues, situations, and topics
• Demonstrate effective research skills, including
  • Accessing information
  • Assessing information
• Demonstrate a knowledge of historical and contemporary factors that help define Canadian civic identity, including
  • Roles of individuals in society
  • Governance
  • Rights and responsibilities
• Identify historical roots of the Canadian political and legal systems, including
  • British parliamentary system
  • Political philosophies and parties
• Describe the division of powers in Canada among federal, provincial, territorial, First Nations, and municipal governments
• Describe Canada’s electoral systems and processes
• Describe the Canadian legal system, including
  • Legal processes
  • The enforcement and administration of laws
• Assess the application of fundamental principles of democracy (including equality, freedom, selection of decision makers, rule of law, and balancing the common good with the rights of individuals) with respect to selected to 20^th and 21^st century cases in Canada
• Evaluate the relative abilities of individuals, governments, and non-governmental organizations to effect civic change in Canada and the world, with reference to considerations such as
  • Power and influence
  • Circumstances
  • Methods of decision making and action
  • Public opinion
• Assess the role of beliefs and values in civic decision making
• Evaluate the citizen’s role in civic processes locally, provincially, nationally, and internationally
• Apply skills of civic discourse and dispute resolution, including consensus building, negotiation, compromise, and majority rule
• Evaluate the ethics of selected civic decisions
• Implement a plan for action on selected local, provincial, national, or international civic issue”

Source: British Columbia Ministry of Education. Civics Studies 11: Integrated Resource Package 2005. Victoria: Ministry of Education, 2005.