Directions:  By now you should have shared a draft of your Letter to the Next President.  Before you revise your letter, search for some facts that you can use to support your opinions.  By the time you finish this sequence you should have some good information that you can include in your final draft. 

Steps 1-4 will lead you to writing that will appear as a post on Youth Voices - that's a different piece of writing than your letter to the president.  Your post on Youth Voices is meant to document the learning that you've done by examining the way the candidates describe their own views and contrasting that with how other sources describe the candidates' stances on the issues.  The piece you write for your letter to the next president will go through a longer process of revision.  You won't finish your letter today, but the following activities will help you shape your thinking for that piece of writing.  You will, however, complete a Youth Voices post today, which is more like a journal entry.

Step One.  Open a new Google Doc to record your findings from the following issues search.

Step Two. Open a new tab for your issues information searches, while keeping your Google Doc tab open.  Read about the candidates from their own web sites.  How do the candidates describe their stance on the issue/issues you care most about?  Be sure to cite the source.

Step Three.  Using Google's Basic and Advanced Search features to find information appropriate to your search.  When you locate rivers of "information" that you determine are objective, add the feeds to your Google Reader.
  1. Read this information about the essentials of Google search
  2. Here's a quick list of terms to help you refine and improve your search
  3. Here are some Advanced Search Tips
  4. Now conduct an Advanced Search to determine the candidates' views from sources other than the candidates on one or more of the issues listed below

Use these issues keywords in your advanced search and consider limiting your search to more recent results
  1. Abortion
  2. Afghanistan
  3. Civil Rights
  4. Cloning
  5. Crime
  6. Death Penalty
  7. Drugs
  8. Economy
  9. Education
  10. Energy
  11. Environment
  12. Euthanasia (Assisted Suicide)
  13. Foreign Policy (excluding Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel-Palestine)
  14. Free Trade
  15. Guns
  16. Health Care
  17. Homeland Security
  18. Housing
  19. Immigration
  20. Iran
  21. Iraq
  22. Israeli-Palestinian conflict
  23. LGBT issues
  24. Poverty
  25. Social Security
  26. Stem Cell research
  27. Taxes
  28. Technology & Infastructure

Step Four.  Post your issues writing to Youth Voices.

Step Five (optional).  Complete the presidential vote match from ontheissues.org


Step Six.  Now consider how you can use the facts you found from your search as evidence to support your position in Letters to the Next President.  Attribute the source of your information using in-text citations (not snippets). 

Example: "According to a September 25 Gallup Poll, the majority of Americans ...."


Step Seven.  Share your "Letters to the Next President" template with someone in this class.  Also, make sure Mr. Sloan is a collaborator.  Use this address: ccsloan@gmail.com.  We will workshop these stories in class on Monday, 10/5.