Obama in Indiana

I've just posted a new set of discussion starters about President Obama's trip to Indiana yesterday. Here it is:

The Washington Post is running an article entitled, “Obama Returns to
Campaign Tactics to Push Stimulus Bill.” The article begins,
“President Obama took his campaign for a massive new economic
stimulus package to this hard-hit corner of Indiana Monday and urged
Congress to pass a bill ‘immediately’ to avoid the prospect of a
‘deepening disaster.’” It states, “In a speech and town hall-style
question-and-answer session in Elkhart, where the unemployment rate
now tops 15 percent, Obama warned that without immediate action to
deal with the nation's economic crisis, millions more jobs could be
lost. He said national unemployment rates could approach double
digits, as they already have in Elkhart, and the country could ‘sink into
a crisis that at some point we may be unable to reverse.’"

Read the article here.


If you like these questions take a look at my Living Textbook for hundreds more.

Discussion Starters for Younger Children

*Why do you think it's important for adults to work?

*People are paid to work. What kinds of things can they do with the
money?

*Think about a time when you went shopping with your mom or
dad? What did you buy? Do you think that the people at the store
were happy that you and your parents bought something? Why or
why not?

*Can you think of anything that is more important than money?
What?

Discussion Starters for Older Students

*Vocabulary terms to discuss: Stimulus; Dubbed; Offing; and, Policy.

*The article recognizes a difference between campaign behavior and
governance behavior. Do you think that this is a legitimate
distinction? Why or why not? What difference do the authors of this
article appear to consider legitimate?

*If you could identify one industry that the government should
financially support in an effort to best boost the economy, what
industry would you select? Why?

*According to the article, President Obama said, "The country that
figures out how to make cheaper energy that's also clean, that country
is going to win the economic competition of the future." Do you
agree with the President? Why or why not? What questions would
you seek to answer in an effort to determine the validity of his
statement?

Maybe today or tomorrow I'll write a post questioning the sophistication of a newspaper reporter who asks President Obama about his views on A-Rod in the midst of this economic "catastrophe."