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Home > Connecting with Students in AP U.S. Government & Politics Using the Web
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Connecting with Students in AP U.S. Government & Politics Using the Web
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by James M. Hoefler
Dickinson College
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
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Introduction
As the old saw goes, when teaching, you have to go where the students are. But how can you go where the students are (or even know where they are) when you have as many as 30 students to locate intellectually (and perhaps only 50 to 75 minutes in which to do it)?
The bad news is that you can't -- not in the typical AP U.S. Government classroom, anyway. Even a demographically homogeneous group of students will bring a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and predispositions with them through your classroom door, and it is logistically impossible for you to connect personally with each one of them. There is never enough time in the class period to give examples that each student could relate to; and even if you make time to reach one or a small group of students, you run the risk of losing the rest.
The good news is that all is not lost. You can use Web resources to connect with students where they are. Using the Web to augment your presentation of the material means that even though you have to provide a generalized experience in the classroom, the students can still come away from the course with content and examples tailored to their unique interests and backgrounds.
Tailoring to Students' Needs
Teaching about the concept of "pluralism" provides a good opportunity to demonstrate the use of the Web to create a tailored overlay to the common course experience. The central role that interest groups play in American politics is reflected in the number of times one might legitimately touch on the subject: in democratic theory (in discussions of Madison's factions in Federalist 51), political behavior (associated with grassroots activism in the wake of political party decline), electoral politics (in discussing the role interest groups play in campaigns and elections), and the influence that interest groups bring to bear on governing elites.
However, even though interest groups are ubiquitous in American government, students do not always recognize or appreciate the importance of group politics. That's where the Web can help. Since you do not have the time or the prescience to identify the political actors students will most readily relate to in the classroom, the best way to get the pluralism message across is to allow students to use the Web to identify groups for themselves.
One way to get started is to provide students with a link to the site American Government on the Web.
 American Government on the Web
Clicking the Political Behavior tab on that Web page takes you to the vicinity of "Section 9: Interest Groups," where you'll find a link to Political Advocacy Groups. This is an archive site that includes links to more than 400 political advocacy groups in the United States.1
Instructors can direct students to this link and make any number of assignments that will help students unpack the role that interest groups play in the American political process. For example, in addition to simply browsing this impressive list from A to Z, students could find and research:
- a group they could imagine joining, or a group they would like to oppose, or perhaps one of each
- two groups that rate the performance of members of Congress, then compare rankings different groups give the same member
- a group that is active in their hometown or state
- a group that their parents belongs to
- a group they've heard about recently in the news
For each site visited, students should assess:
- the overall appeal of the group's site
- the group's basic message and the effectiveness and balance of the group's presentation of the issues
- tactics the group uses to get its way and build its membership base (Toward this end, it might be fun to invite students to "sign up" online with a group and then have them track the quality and quantity of email contact they receive as the semester unfolds.)
Students could also look into:
- what interest-group issues garner the most Web traffic in the nation or in a specific region2
- the success of various groups in getting press coverage3
Research and Relevance
In addition to using the Web to familiarize themselves generally with interest group pluralism, students can use these links for research papers or in preparing for simulations, debates, or in-class discussions. The instructor can continue to give the overarching framework for the concept of pluralism in class, while students get a hands-on flavor for the concept by seeking out on the Web those groups and issues that are of most interest and relevance to them.
The same sort of strategy could be used for any number of topics in an AP U.S. Government & Politics course. These would have general common themes but specifics that are likely to resonate differently with different students. For example, when studying the federal bureaucracy, different students will be curious or even excited about different departments and agencies. Allowing students to use the Web to find bureaucracies they are most interested in -- places where they can imagine working, perhaps -- can bring the subject alive for them in ways no lecture can. Two links that could prove useful in helping students to "find themselves" in the bureaucratic thicket are the Federal Web Locator and the Official U.S. Executive Branch Web Sites.
Federal Web Locator
Official U.S. Executive Branch Web Sites
Likewise, on the American Government on the Web site, links at "Section 10: Congress" make it easy for students to locate their own representatives, and links at "Section 11: Presidency" can help students find information on presidents that interest them.
"Section 6: Campaigns and Media" provides a link to "The Living Room Candidate," a fascinating archive of political ads from presidential campaigns (1952-2000) in streaming video format. You will never have time (and may not even have the equipment) to show these ads in class. However, giving students access to the archive will allow them to browse and discover the richness of past campaigns for themselves, at their own pace, and in their own way, guided only by their own interests and passions.
In each of these scenarios, the instructor continues to provide the overarching framework for learning the AP course material, just as he or she always has. The difference is that now students can supply themselves with the details and examples that are most interesting to them. The Web makes it possible for your AP students to follow their own hearts while they are also following yours, thereby putting to good use the most powerful of all teaching motivations: the student's own curiosity. Teaching AP U.S. Government & Politics, or anything else for that matter, does not get any better or more fun than that.
Notes
1The site was compiled by Kathi Carlisle Fountain, Reference/Political Science & Social Work Librarian at the Meriam Library California State University (Chico, California).
2Fountain ranks the issues by the number of hits each site (grouped by subject area) receives. In 1999, she found that the most popular issues were (1) guns; (2) think tanks (general); (3) animals; (4) environment; (5) alcohol; (6) abortion; (7) education; (8) civil rights; (9) gender; and (10) immigration.
3Fountain ranks the issues by the number of newspaper citations each site has using Academic Universe, an online database from Lexis-Nexis. In 1999, the most-cited groups were (1) the American Legion; (2) American Cancer Society; (3) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); (4) the Green Party; (5) Sierra Club; (6) AFL-CIO; (7) National Rifle Association; (8) Veterans of Foreign Wars; (9) American Civil Liberties Union; (10) AARP.
James M. Hoefler is professor of political science and coordinator of the Policy Studies program at Dickinson College, where he has taught courses on American government and domestic public policy since 1989. Professor Hoefler's publications include several articles and two books in his specific area of public policy expertise, the right-to-die movement (Managing Death, Westview Press, 1997, and Deathright: Culture, Medicine, Politics and the Right to Die, Westview Press, 1994).
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