(30-40 minutes)

OBJECTIVE
Students examine the jobs of the president to discuss facets of American democracy.

MATERIALS
The Hat Patterns handout; The President's Work handout; boxes

• Divide your students into groups of three.
• Copy and cut apart The Hat Patterns handout. Place each hat on the front of an open box.
• Copy and cut apart a set of The President's Work cards for each group of three.
• Read "The Office of President" in the Appendix.

• Prepare your class for the activity with a discussion of the powers and duties of the president.
• Give each group a set of The President's Work cards.
• Instruct each group to discuss each card, decide which job goes to which hat, and place the cards in the correct hat box.
• When all the cards are in the hat boxes, invite a student to stand by each box, draw the cards out, and then read them to the class.
• You can keep track of the cards by posting them on the board or by taping them to the front of the boxes.
• Go over which duties belonged to each job. (You can pass out the answers; a handout is provided.)

• What do you think is the president's most important job? Why?
• Why were some of the same cards dropped in different boxes? (This will inevitably happen, and is a good time to address that the president's different responsibilities may intersect.
• Which hat would you like to wear? Why?
• Which hat would you not like to wear? Why?
• How does a president learn to do all these jobs?
• How could you prepare yourself to be president?
• Which jobs do you think the current president does either poorly or well?
• (If an election is forthcoming), Which candidate do you think is most prepared?
• If you don't know, how could you find out?
• How do you think the president of the United States is different from other world leaders?
• What characteristics do you think a president should have?

• Create a chart on the board identifying the hats of the president. Ask the students which hat they think is most important.
• Have a student volunteer to tally the votes as you call on one student at a time. Each student gets to vote once.
• Create a bar graph on the board. Using the chart information, have students fill in the correct number of votes each hat received.

• Which hat got the most number of votes? Does this make it the most important job of the president?
• Which hat got the least number of votes? Does this make it the least important job of the president?
• What do you think the president would say is the most important thing he does?

MORE!
Develop a similar activity for governor, senator, mayor, etc.