America magazine’s special election blog is designed to help teachers in civics, history, politics and journalism use the blog to stimulate discussion in the classroom, facilitate research projects by the students, and familiarize the students with Catholic social thought and what that tradition has to say about current events. The special election blog will run from September 8 through election day.
Each weekday morning, the blog will have a new posting by 8 a.m. EDT. This will be posted by our regular political blooger, Michael Sean Winters, author of the recently published book Left at the Altar: How the Democrats Lost the Catholics and How the Catholics Can save the Democrats. Additional posts from the America staff will appear throughout the week. Students, like all readers, can post comments on these blog posts by the staff. Teachers can work with the America staff if they want their students to post blog entries also.
Each morning blog post will contain a link(s) to a news article. As well, we will provide links to other opinion articles on the same topic if they are available. Additionally, the blog site will have a resources section with links to important resources, such as the USCCB website, the text of “Faithful Citizenship” (the bishops’ document on voting), papal encyclicals on social justice matters, allowing students to research issues more thoroughly. The website will also include links to other journals of opinion, Catholic and non-Catholic, so students can evaluate different editorial perspectives. Finally, some curriculum ideas will be available to teachers by contacting America.
For more information, or for the curriculum ideas, contact America at blogelection@aol.com. Please put “America Blog” in the subject line of the email.
