About This Lesson
Cast Your Vote is an iCivics game about campaigns and elections. Throughout the game, the user researches candidates, attends town halls, and determines how to vote in an upcoming election.
You can read more about the game in this review of Cast Your Vote. But it is a great game that models how students can go about being active citizens and informed voters. It's fun and engaging.
This is a great activity to do early on in the school year. Assuming there is some kind of election happening in your city or state in November, playing this game will let you launch into teaching your students about the actual election.
First, you should introduce the game and have your students play it. iCivics offers a great handout with a list of the issues, and you may want to review this with your students before they play. Then, you should reflect on their experience through a discussion or a written reflection. Some questions to pay attention to are:
- What methods of research helped you the most?
- Are there other ways you can learn about candidates that weren't featured in the game?
- Did you find it easy to select a candidate or difficult?
- What issues did you care about? Did the candidates address them effectively?
Once they've played the game and reflected on the experience, it's time to put it into practice. Give your students time to research the candidates in the upcoming election, and identify the issues that matter to them.
As in the game, have them use different methods to research the candidates. In addition to campaign websites, e-mail lists, and social media, have them contact the candidates themselves with questions. If possible, they could even attend a debate or town hall.
This also pairs well with a mock election, if your school participates in that.
Cast Your Vote is one of the better games developed by iCivics, but there are other good ones. Check out these other reviews of iCivics games to see what you can use in your class.
