Students tout candidates through campaign posters

by Emily Hines

Mr. Hoover’s current event class has been working on a new project that all of Pittsford High School could witness upon our walls. The assignment was for each student or group in the class to make a poster for both candidates for this year’s presidential election (Senator Obama and Senator McCain). They were asked to present an issue with which they agree with, or mostly agree with, and make a poster emphasizing each candidate’s strong points by stating the issues. Students did not pick to do a poster on the candidate they necessarily think should obtain presidency but were asked to make a poster for both candidates to provide a balance among the student’s projects.

The project appeared to be more of a way to express your thoughts about each candidate rather than a harsh task for each student to accomplish. Junior Tyler Wilson found the project fun and useful. “I liked doing the project because I got to work with friends and also work with politics.”
Not only was this assignment entertaining and fun for the students but it also had somewhat of a challenge for them. “The challenge was trying to find issues that were school appropriate but still address the issues you were trying to get across,” Tyler added. “The challenge for me was trying to discifer between different factors of Barack Obama and John McCain,” explained senior Gene Stockford.

The project that Mr. Hoover’s current events students are participating in is very important and educational to each student. The assignment is also beneficial to each of the students’ futures in voting for candidates. “It is important to know the issues so we know what’s going on,” said Tyler. Gene liked being able to explain his views. “I felt what we got out of this assignment is that we got to put our own opinion in on who we support and why we support them,” said Gene.
Students are receiving excellent guidance in knowing how to recognize the issues of this election from Mr. Hoover. “Not only did the students in current events have to look more closely at the particular issues, now anybody at PHS can get some information simply by looking at the posters adorning the walls of our hallways,” said Mr. Hoover.

The assignment was to show support for each presidential candidate but the students also got the chance to be creative in their work. Each student was given the choice to use a visual or graphic supporting his or her work. Gene was a fan of this idea. “I liked the fact that we could use images to show what the politicians are really going towards,” explained Gene.

Each candidate has their strong and weak points. By looking at the posters on our walls it seems as if the students did a great job on stating the facts so all of Pittsford High School can recognize and know the issues too.