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Teaching the Executive Branch & Presidents

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  • Activities: 6
  • Quiz Questions: 52

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Grab your pruning shears (and this teaching guide), and help your students trim back some of the foliage to get a look at how the executive branch was originally intended to be run—and how it's grown over the generations.

In this guide you will find

  • assignments analyzing historical symbols, quotes, and documents.
  • modern resources, like articles bickering over presidential power.
  • historical connections to biographies of influential presidents like FDR, JFK, and others who aren't identifiable just by their initials.

This teaching guide will help you branch out.

What's Inside Shmoop's Civics Teaching Guides

Shmoop is a labor of love from folks who love to teach. Our teaching guides will help you supplement in-classroom learning with fun, engaging, and relatable learning materials that bring civics to life.

Inside each guide you'll find quizzes, activity ideas, discussion questions, and more—all written by experts and designed to save you time. Here are the deets on what you get with your teaching guide:

  • 4-10 Common Core-aligned activities (including quotation, image, and document analysis) to complete in class with your students, with detailed instructions for you and your students. 
  • Discussion and essay questions for all levels of students.
  • Reading quizzes to be sure students are looking at the material through various lenses.
  • Resources to help make the topic feel more relevant to your 21st-century students.
  • A note from Shmoop’s teachers to you, telling you what to expect from teaching the topic and how you can overcome the hurdles.

Want more help teaching Teaching the Executive Branch & Presidents?

Check out all the different parts of our corresponding learning guide.



Instructions for You

Objective: Holding the office of the presidency is a big responsibility, so sitting behind that desk in the oval office is bound to have a profound effect on a person. 

Today your students will examine a quote from Lyndon B. Johnson that addresses the effect being president can have on the holder of that office. They'll also discuss LBJ's presidency and the ways in which his quote relates to his record. 

Length of Lesson: One class period

Materials Needed:

  • LBJ quote, provided in Step One below

Step One: Read the following quote aloud with your students. 

"The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands."
— Lyndon B. Johnson

Step Two: Explore the meaning of this quotation with your students. 

  • What exactly was Johnson saying? 
  • To what was he admitting? 

Step Three: After a preliminary discussion of the quotation, review the major events of Johnson’s presidency, using the bullet points below. 

  • Johnson escalated the war in Vietnam. Congress never declared war and accused him of taking advantage of the vaguely worded Tonkin Gulf Resolution to send more than 500,000 troops. Could this be relevant to the quotation?
  • Unable to make progress in Vietnam and facing a challenge from within his own party, Johnson decided not to seek re-election in 1968. Could this be relevant to the quotation?
  • Johnson launched a hugely ambitious program to build a “Great Society” by fighting poverty and discrimination and increasing funds for education. Could this be relevant to the quote? To the first part or the second?
  • He resolved to fund his Great Society and wage the war in Vietnam without raising taxes. As a result, inflation increased by the end of his term. Could this be relevant?

Step Four: After your review of Johnson's presidency, ask students to take 5-10 minutes to focus on the first half of the quotation and respond to the following question in writing:

What exactly is Johnson suggesting about the presidential office?

Step Five: Give students a chance to share the ideas they generated in their writing. Be sure to discuss what they think Johnson is saying about the presidency overall:

  • Does it inspire lofty ambition?
  • Does it lead to arrogance?
  • Does it do both?

(Lesson aligned with CA 12th grade American government standards 12.7.8)

Instructions for Your Students

Sitting in this seat (in Casterly Rock, in Lannisport, in a work of fiction) would likely have a great impact on a person. And the same is true of this seat, at least according to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Today you'll be looking at a quote from LBJ about the presidency—and the effect that holding that office can have. What do you think it would be like to be president? 

  • All fun and games? 
  • All work and no play? 
  • Exhilarating? 
  • Overwhelming? 
  • All of the above?

You'll use LBJ's quote to explore that answer today, and you'll also discuss the ways in which his quote might relate to his record. 

Step One: Read the following quote aloud with your teacher and classmates. 

"The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands." 
— Lyndon B. Johnson

Step Two: Explore the meaning of this quotation by discussing the following questions. 

  • What exactly was Johnson saying?  
  • To what was he admitting? 

Step Three: After a preliminary discussion of the quotation, review the major events of Johnson’s presidency, using the bullet points below. 

  • Johnson escalated the war in Vietnam. Congress never declared war and accused him of taking advantage of the vaguely worded Tonkin Gulf Resolution to send more than 500,000 troops. Could this be relevant to the quotation?
  • Unable to make progress in Vietnam and facing a challenge from within his own party, Johnson decided not to seek re-election in 1968. Could this be relevant to the quotation?
  • Johnson launched a hugely ambitious program to build a “Great Society” by fighting poverty and discrimination and increasing funds for education. Could this be relevant to the quote? To the first part or the second?
  • He resolved to fund his Great Society and wage the war in Vietnam without raising taxes. As a result, inflation increased by the end of his term. Could this be relevant?

Step Four: After your review of Johnson's presidency, take 5-10 minutes to focus on the first half of the quotation and respond to the following question in writing:

What exactly is Johnson suggesting about the presidential office?

Step Five: Share the ideas you generated in your writing and listen to what your classmates came up with. Be sure to discuss what you think Johnson is saying about the presidency overall:

  • Does it inspire lofty ambition?
  • Does it lead to arrogance?
  • Does it do both?