Empower your students to be informed citizens who fight for fair elections with this engaging reading comprehension worksheet on gerrymandering!
Dive into the Unfair Game:
- Unmask the Tricks: Explore how "cracking," "packing," and other tactics manipulate district boundaries to give one party an unfair advantage.
- Consequences Uncovered: Discover the real-world impact of gerrymandering, from distorted representation to silenced minority voices and political polarization.
- Hope on the Horizon: Investigate solutions like independent redistricting commissions and ranked-choice voting that can level the playing field.
Engage Critical Thinking:
- Primary Source Analysis: Analyze a Supreme Court excerpt to deepen understanding of gerrymandering's impact on democracy.
- Multiple Choice, True/False, Fill-in-the-Blanks, and Short Answer Questions: Reinforce key learning objectives and encourage active participation.
- Clear Answer Key: Save valuable time with a complete and easy-to-follow guide.
Align with Curriculum Standards:
This resource meets numerous Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Reading, and Writing, making it a valuable tool for middle and high school social studies or civics classes.
Reading:
- RI.8.8: Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient to support the claims.
- RI.9-10.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.
- RI.11-12.7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.
Writing:
- WHST.6-8.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.
- WHST.9-10.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.