A Three Ring Circus
by wallyg on Flickr - Some rights reserved
Teaching government concepts to eighth graders can be trying enough, but getting students in Taiwan to care about the workings the United States’ government is an uphill battle. However, using visuals to help kids “see” what it looks like makes life easier. For this unit, I worked with Erik Johnsen and Kristin Rowe (two fellow eighth grade social studies teachers) to work on better visuals to help students understand the three branches of government.
We begin the unit by showing the “old school” School House Rock
video clip called “Three Ring Circus”. This provides a great visual with a catchy song that sticks with many students.
Flickr Image - Some rights reserved by greeblie
Next, we share a PowerPoint that provides details and knowledge about the Three Branches of Government. This provides a note-taking opportunity and a chance to discuss in depth the three branches and see more images of the “checks and balances” of each.
Teacher Created Activity - some rights reserved by TAS
Next, we have the students process through two Inspiration Webs – both have the students process visually and organizationally. This allowed students work with text and visuals as well and show an understanding of key vocabulary terms from the unit.
To reinforce, self-assess, and have some fun with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, we used the website Our Courts to play a games where students had to apply knowledge they’ve learned. Also, the Planet Drajplit Group Activity forced them to create a new constitution for a new civilization on Mars. Students also used Brain Pops to self-assess their knowledge.
Finally, the culminating project was what we call the “Three Branches of Government Metaphor Project”. 
For this, students had to show deep knowledge of the three branches and compare them to “something” that they are knowledgable of. The example we give them is an electric coffee maker. Some popular ones from the past are sports teams, making a movie, the internet, etc.
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