Presidential Bracketology

It’s bracket time boys and girls, and here is your opportunity to show your stuff by telling us who you think is the best.

Washington or Cleveland; Roosevelt or Lincoln?

Espn.com is not going to help you predict bracket busters in this contest, but a history book might.

Before you predict that your Final Four is going to resemble Mount Rushmore, remember that Washington and Jefferson are in the same regional and that Mount Rushmore doesn’t include FDR or Reagan.

Link here: 74.220.207.112/~mrreedne/usva/projects/brackets/bracket.htm to Jeffrey Reed's website and follow the directions, dividing the class into four brackets. Each take a bracket, print it and fill it out. We'll go over the Madness on Monday.

The directions:

*Divide your class into four groups. Assign each group one of the four bracket divisions.
*Each group must research the presidents listed inside their division.
A focus should be on the accomplishments and failures of each president.
*For each matchup the group argues which of the two presidents was "greater."
This continues until all four groups have chosen the "greatest" president from their division.
*Each group briefly reviews their decisions to the class as a whole and then announces which president they selected as their winner.
*The entire class then debates the merits of the four division champions and reaches consensus on how the four should be ranked.

Note
*Do not discourage "upsets". Explain to your students that the seeds are in place according to numerous surveys of historians, and that so long as their choices are based on historical information they can proceed as they see fit. Of course, they will be pitting their winner against three others, so they want to come up with the president who in their minds is the strongest.