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<h1>Canterbury Capstone: The 2008 Election</h1>
 
Most of Canterbury's graduating class is of voting age, and so it seems appropriate that they have the tools they need to make informed decisions in the voting booths this coming November. The 2008 Capstone program begins by teaching a solid understanding of the history of the political parties, knowledge of the Constitution, and a detailed instruction about the primary elections and Electoral College. 
 
Given the historical backdrop learned in the capstone classes, students are shown how to research the current candidates’ voting records in order to evaluate whether the candidate actually supports the issues they say they do. Of course, objective discussion about these topical issues better informs this process. For example, the student will have to decide whether they think global warming is actually a problem before they research a candidate’s voting record on that issue. 
 
Form-wide Friday seminars by other departments educate the students on the complexities of these specific issues. 
 
Upon completion of the Capstone course, the Canterbury student will be able to see the cumulative effect of their Canterbury education and how it has made them more informed citizens. 
 
The table below shows the theme of the week. We are using a text by Adkins and the table also shows the readings that we will be doing from that text as well as who the seminar speaker will be and what topic they will be addressing: 
<img src="/file/view/capstone_detail2.jpg/42718509/capstone_detail2.jpg" alt="" title="" /> 
The logistics of the capstone classes are as follows. The science department gives a Friday seminar about the facts of global warming. The history teachers take up a discussion about that issue in the following class, either Saturday or Monday. The history teachers then begin a new topic with readings and discussions during the weekly classes. This backdrop leads to the next Friday seminar. The math department explains how statistics work and what they mean. The English department explains the art of rhetoric through analysis of candidate’s speeches. This is followed by an informative investigation of media bias. The art department discusses the elements of political satire in art. The theology department fills us in on the long history of religion and politics in the US. 
 
Separate capstone weekly sections would have the freedom to explore a variety of opportunities: a mock election, mock debates, creating a campaign ad or poster or cartoon, etc. 
 
Following the election, the Capstone sections will examine Congress and Supreme Court. We will also use current news stories to try and track the new President’s actions with their campaign promises. 
 
<ul><li>photos of capstone lectures on this page are thanks to Marc Vanasse</li><li>link to the <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.cbury.org/podium/default.aspx?t=118&amp;uplid=285961460" rel="nofollow">Canterbury Website Capstone page</a></li></ul>