Basic Outline

1. Survey students (online) to see which political party they fall under.
   
2. Organize a series of debates based on 4-6 issues at a time.
   
3. Determine what makes a good speech during a debate (scoring criteria for peer-assessment & self-assessment).
   
4. Give students time to research each issue and come up with their stance. They should also prepare a 60 second speech explaining their position and their plan (citing evidence whenever possible).
   
5. On the day of the debate, students record their videos independently after the question has been asked. They then upload their videos to YouTube and tag it with "Debate 1."
   
6. Students from their party watch each video and score it based on criteria set forth before the planning stage.
   
7. Students score themselves as well.
   
8. Based on their scores, students are essentially "voting" for the best candidate within their political party.
   
9. The highest 50% move on to the next debate, while the lower 50% become Campaign Managers for the remaining candidates.
   
10. Repeat this process with the bottom 50% becoming Vice-Presidential candidates. Students from the party choose the running mates rather than the presidential candidate. The incentive is that the winning political party will get an advantage when we start our next simulation (Revolutionary War).
    
11. The final debate will have the Presidents & VPs for each political party together and it will be live. The campaign managers can help prepare for the debate, but cannot help during the actual debate.
    
12. Propose some scenarios that could happen while a president is in office (in addition to the standard issues) and see how they would respond. This will help the voters determine who they trust most.