Interest Groups Assignment

This is a group research presentation using Office 365 Power Point, SWAY or Google Docs to present your findings. Office 365 is available for free for Students in Douglas County Schools. (Go to DCSS Website, click on resources for students and download if necessary. Someone in your group must email me a link ( ) for the group’s presentation so that I can put it up on the Smart Board. Use your Group and Block Numbers to ID your presentation, i.e., Group 5 AP Gov 04 SWAY presentation. If you need help using SWAY….here’s a link to an overview

  • Everyone Works!
  • Assign Tasks (Tech Design, Research, Presentation/Script Writing, SIG Assessor, etc.)
  • No Free Riders in your Interest Group!

Thursday November 16, 2017 Each group picks a SIG for their research, assign tasks, decides what presentation format they will use and begin research. If you don’t know or remember the Unit Vocab this would be a good time to ‘refresh’ that memory. Put the Group number, members’ names, task assignments, SIG being researched.

What to Research

  1. Pick one of the interest groups listed on the following website:

2. Go to that group’s web site. Research the following topics and prepare apresentation on your Interest Group. Your presentation must include the following information:

a. Give a brief history of the group. (e.g. founding date and location, prominent founders, motivation, notable achievements). Unless your group has a notable history (and some of these groups do) I don’t expect a detailed minute-by-minute discussion of your group’s history. I’m just looking for information on what the purpose of this group is and what type of actions it has taken in the past.

b. What is the group’s political ideology? Does it favor one political party over the other? If so, does it have a history of supporting certain political candidates? What is it doing to support their favored candidates? Make the connection between their political ideology, the legislation they support, and the party they support.

OR

If you think your group is absolutely neutral, say so. Many interest groups are neutral. For the points in this section you will do the following. Find and summarize at least two news articles relevant to your interest group. You can use to find such articles. Use the information to show how your group is trying to influence public policy.

c. What aresome examples of legislation your group supports or opposes? What actions does your group take to try to influence policy and the public agenda? What resources make it influential? Give specific examples: (e.g. use of the media, law suits, direct lobbying, public information contributions, etc.) Which parts of the government does your group target, i.e. which executive branch departments and congressional committees? How successful is your group?

d. Assess your group: What are its strengths and weaknesses? How effective is it in achieving its agenda? How far reaching is its influence? Why? Back up what you say with specific examples.

Monday November27, 2017

  1. Now begin to prepare your presentations and be ready to create, revise and design the presentation with your group in our next class Monday, 11 27.17 our first day back. I have reserved the laptop cart for use on your group and individual SIG projects. This is the time you will use for rehearsal and revisions

Wednesday November29, 2017 Group Presentations at beginning of class.

Possible Points
History / 5
Political Efforts/two news article summaries if your group is neutral / 5
How it tries to influence policy and the public agenda / 5
Assessment of group / 5
Presentation / 10
TOTAL / 30