1. Warm Up: Label the Fallacy being used
1. I can't believe you voted to restrict welfare. Either you didn't understand the proposition, or you just don't care about those less fortunate than yourself!
2. "Bill says that we should give tax breaks to companies. But he is untrustworthy, so it must be wrong to do that.
3. Bill: "God must exist." Jill: "How do you know." Bill: "Because the Bible says so." Jill: "Why should I believe the Bible?" Bill: "Because the Bible was written by God."
4. Paul Ryan said Obama’s proposal to let tax rates rise for high-income individuals would “tax about 53 percent of small-business income.
5. Romney on his plans to build a strong Libyan government: “I’d recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security.” Presidential debate Oct. 22
6. "If such actions were not illegal, then they would not be prohibited by the law."

2. Think-Pair Share What do you think public opinion is?
How is public opinion created? / What creates public opinion?

3. Public Opinion
Objective: I will analyze the formation and impact of public opinion.
DOL:
In a constructed response of at least 7 sentences, explain how public opinion is formed and its importance in regards to American politics.

4. Close Reading
Read only the first two pages of your packet (STOP when you get to SECTION 4)
Read and annotate the text
Number paragraphs
Circle key terms – No more than 5 per chunk
Chunk as you go to group paragraphs of similar content
Left column is a one sentence summary per chunk
Right column is a question per chunk (could be confusion or higher-level)

5. Public Opinion
Public Opinion: the sum of many individual opinions about a public person or issue
(the majority opinion of someone or something)
Socialization is essentially a person’s learning to act in culture…what is cool, what is important, what is your role in society
Political Socialization: the experiences we have that lead us to the conclusions we have about political issues

6. Questions to Consider
List six forces that shape political socialization.
Rank them in order from 1 (most influence on my political socialization) to 6 (least influence). For the top two items on your list, briefly explain why they have influenced your political socialization.
Create a simple diagram or illustration to represent each of the three ways that public opinion is shaped. Label each illustration.
Why is public opinion important in a democracy?

8. Ways Public Opinion is Shaped
Special Interest Groups
A large group that advocates (supports) for a certain issue. People agree with what their groups believe and these groups are listened to because of their large #s
Examples: NRA, Planned Parenthood, NAACP, Sierra Club (environmental group, not the school), Catholic Families USA
Journalists, Politicians, Opinion Makers
We don’t have time to look into every issue ourselves, so we often rely on the facts and opinions presented by newspapers, activists, public officials, etc.
Politicians’ accounts of Public Opinion
Politicians often say “the people want…. Or the public believes…” either because they actually think this, or to convince the public the politician is behaving according to the citizens’ wants.

10. Public Opinion Shapes Policy
There is rarely 1 “public opinion.” There are too many people for us all to agree on one thing.
It is typically split into two major views in America
We will discuss this more over the coming days.
Politicians must listen to public opinion in order to avoid getting voted out of office.
Ex: Clinton’s healthcare reform

11. Early DOL
Define Public Opinion
Explain how Public Opinion is formed.

12. Bubble Map
Public Opinion
Idea

13. DOL- GRADED!
In a constructed response of at least 7 sentences, explain how public opinion is formed and its importance in regards to American politics.

14. Size of government

15. Scope of government
Big Government
Small government
Favor political and social reform, usually government-driven
favor increased federal services (welfare, social security, Medicare, student-loans, etc)
government intervention in the economy; consumer protection ensured by the government;
government involvement in protecting the environment
guaranteeing the rights of people
tend to support less military
Tend to believe that a larger/powerful government threatens its citizen’s freedoms
support limited government involvement in economic issues (laissez-faire)
tend to believe social problems should be handled on a smaller scale (state level, community-level, churches, etc)
conservatives support a stronger military.
Think-Pair-Share: Which political party do you think typically matches with “big government”? “Small government”?

16. Critical Thinking and Making Inferences
Write 2 potential positive and negative aspects of small government
Write 2 potential positive and negative aspects of big government