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		Additional Lesson Ideas Comparing Political Strategies: Machiavelli and Rousseau Letter to Karl Rove or Editorial Evaluating His Strategy and Success
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» Additional Lesson Ideas

» Comparing Political Strategies: Machiavelli and Rousseau

Students will step back from current politics to learn something about political philosophers of the past. They will read about Machiavelli's The Prince and Rousseau's The Social Contract, completing the lesson by individually writing comparisons or by setting up a class debate between proponents of Machiavelli and of Rousseau.

• Students can begin the Machiavelli search at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince
• Students can begin the Rousseau search at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#The_Social_Contract

» Letter to Karl Rove or Editorial Evaluating His Strategy and Success

Students will use information from the documentary and from their discussions to evaluate the Rove goals and strategies shown in the film. By spotlighting the power of sentence structure, the goal of this exercise is to show students the potency of their own rhetoric.

Procedure:

1. Present students with the following independent clauses:
   

   "Karl Rove succeeds."
   "People question Karl Rove's methods."

2. Ask them to combine the two independent clauses into one sentence, making ONE of the clauses dependent or subordinate.
   
   
3. Point out the difference between:

   A. "Although people question his methods, Karl Rove succeeds."
   B. "Although Karl Rove succeeds, people question his methods."

4. Make sure that students recognize that the thought in the independent clause almost always appears more important than the thought in the dependent clause. So, example A above emphasizes the fact that Rove succeeds, while example B emphasizes those who question his methods.
   
   
5. Encourage students to use the power that the subordinate clause gives them as they write their letter or editorial.

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