Social Studies

Lesson plan #: 1 1. Type of Lesson: Discuss civic responsibility and th

meaning of the preamble as well as create a
Span of time: 1 day classroom preamble.

Objectives Enduring Understanding, Knowledge, Skills

1. Enduring 1. How to be a civically responsible democratic citizen
Understanding (big working for the common good
takeaway): Essential Questions:
What are the roles and responsibilities of democratic citize
2. Knowledge, know Can an individual make a difference?
whats. Students will Why do we have rules and laws?
learn that: How do we maintain the common good?
2. Knowledge
3. Skills, know hows. -major purposes of the constitution
Students will learn -knowledge of what a democracy is
how to: -individual rights
-common good
-parts and functions of government
3. Skills
-debate opinion
-decide what is important or unimportant

KEY ACADEMIC MATERIALS NEEDED FOR THIS LESSON

VOCABULARY
-civic responsibility -large old looking paper
-common good -separate worksheets for each group displaying a portion of the preamble,
-democracy then 6 spaces open to write down the rules the group developed
-the constitution -old Founding Fathers wig
-the preamble -dictionary

FORMATIVE
ASSESSMENT
What formative 1. Assessment on knowledge and skills:
assessment will give you Different forms of formative assessment are observing my stude
information on each of in their discussions and observing if they all submit a vote, havin
your students learning them debate the priorities of certain rules over others, continual
outcome(s)? asking them questions to clarify and guide understanding.

*Specify whether the 2. Assessment on Enduring Understanding (did they

assessment activities are meet the overall goal?):
homework. Homework on common good asks for personal reflection.

LESSON PLAN Describe with detail how the lesson will be introduce
Class begins and
1. How will your intro Hook introduce idea of responsibility: *Student name*
communicate the your weekly job this week is the line leader. What do you
usefulness of the have to do for this job? What would happen if you didn't do
learning content? How that? (ask several students about their jobs). So would you
will you connect the
agree that you all have responsibilities with these jobs? We
learning to their
personal experiences?
what is responsibility? Can I have a volunteer look up the
word responsibility in the dictionary? While *name* looks
2. How will you draw up what do you think responsibility means? In what contex
upon their prior have you heard this word?
knowledge? Define Responsibility:(let students answer and when one
mentions one of the main points (DUTY, having control,
accountable for blame, act independently and make
decisions) read the dictionary definition)
Responsibility def: the state or fact of having a duty to dea
with something or of having control over someone.
So you have different responsibilities; personal, family,
classroom, community
What are some examples of your personal responsibilities?
(eat well, exercise, learn, hygiene), And who holds you
accountable for these responsibilities? (self). Family?
(chores, spend time with, help siblings) And who holds you
accountable for these responsibilities? (parents, guardians
siblings) Classroom? (jobs, participate, learn) And who hol
you accountable for these responsibilities?
Now community responsibility is the idea we are going to
look closer at in this unit.
Can anyone think of ways you have a community
responsibility? Maybe some things you do or dont do that
keep the community running and functioning? Possibly
something we brought up yesterday? (follow laws) All of yo
follow the laws im assuming, so you have upheld your
responsibilities to your community by following the laws
because the laws are in place to protect the values and
people within the community. This responsibility to your
community is called civic responsibility.
Define Civic Responsibility: Civic responsibility
means active participation in the public life of a communit
in an informed, committed, and constructive manner, with
 focus on the common good. In our case being civically
responsible is active participation in the classroom in an
educated, loyal, and beneficial and positive way by improv
the common good of the classroom.
Does anybody have any guess what the common good is? I
an idea we will continue to turn to throughout this unit an
throughout the year and you should really be committed to
your whole life. The common good is the benefit and intere
of everyone. So our civic responsibility in the classroom is
best serve the common good of all of our other classmates
To do these we are going to come up with a classroom
philosophy that will aim to serve the common good of our
classroom.

Through the Learning 1. Introduce Constitution Preamble: The U.S has a philosophy that we al
(A) Descri citizens live by to serve the common good. Do any of you know what it i
be the main called? The Constitution. The constitution serves as our basis of agreeme
activities of your of how we want our country to be run. The Preamble comes before our
lesson plan, constitution to serve as a summary of the ideas in the constitution.
estimating the (Put the Preamble on the board and have a student read it)
amount of time 2. Translate lines of preamble as a class: The preamble has a lot of
that each activity complicated and old words doesnt it? Do you hear people using words li
will take. domestic tranquility? or do ordain? These words make it kind of hard to
understand, so we are going to translate these phrases into language we c
(B) How all understand. First, lets try the first lines together. Does anybody have
do the activities ideas for what We the people of the United States means, and why its
help your important? (Governments power comes from the people, and refers to al
students learn? US citizens). What about in order to form a more perfect union (to crea
an improved country).
3. Translate preamble in groups: Great! These are all ideas our country
values in order to have a country that serves the common good. In order
translate the rest of the preamble I will break you all up into groups of 4
you will work together. You will 1) translate your assigned portion of the
preamble 2) explain why its important, as we just did together. In your
group you will all have a specific job, however you all will equally
participate in generating the translation. One of you will be the leader an
you must encourage everyone to participate as well as ask questions to
generate discussion. The next job is the recorder, you will take notes of i
brought up during the discussion. Another job is the materials manager,
will be in charge of getting and using any material that will help in your
translation. And finally there will be a reporter, you will share with the c
what your group talked about and your translation.
*Split the class into groups of 4, assign phrases establish justice, ensu
domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the
general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our

DIFFERENTIATION
FRAMEWORK
How will you differentiate
your lesson to meet
diverse students needs?
CLASSROOM
MANAGEMENT
How will you foster a positive
learning environment that
will enhance all students
learning and growth?
prosperity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United State
America.
Okay now reporters, report to the front of the room, and share with the class wha
you think your portion meant, and why it was important, and how it serves the
common good.
*Read preamble in the classs translated version*
wow! isnt that so much easier to understand!
4. Create Class Preamble: We are going to create our own class Preamble
*put We the students at the front of the room* What would we include i
our class preamble? Think of purposes for our class, the preamble lists th
big ideas the country wanted for its people. What are big ideas our class
wants for its students. One example is to give everyone a chance to lear
In each of groups develop 6 purposes for our classroom.
5. Vote and decide on finalized preamble: Have the reporter share the group
points and write it down on the board. Then have the class vote on 5-6
beliefs the students bring class back together call on group to give ideas a
the class decides which they believe are most important or most people a
on and form into one statement*
post the class preamble in the front of the room
Do you all feel these ideas support the common good of our classroom for our we
being, learning, and growth? All of you were civically responsible today when y
were deciding which ideas were conducive of our classroom as well as voting ba
on the common good. Tomorrow we will be in the same groups and will create o
own class constitution.
LANGUAGE SUPPORT FOR ELLs
Students who need assistance will be paired in groups with students who
are native speakers who can help them in the group work.
EXCEPTIONAL LEARNING NEEDS
Students may receive a worksheet that displays the words
the preamble with synonyms of the difficult words.
Seating/Classroom Arrangement (only if special arrangement
needed for this lesson)
I am picking out the groups so I will be creating groups with diversity in
culture and abilities so that when the groups collaborate and all have
responsibilities they can all help each other and bring lots of different
ideas to the discussion.
Special Rules/Procedures (only if special rules/procedures require
for this lesson)
 Describe your strategy for Continually ask them is your behavior helping the
classroom management. If common good?
a student or several were
to disrupt the class
activities and lessons, how
will you respond?

Homework: from civiced.org

Problem Solving
Your Interests and the Common Welfare
How do you decide what the common welfare is? When should you give up your
own interests to do something that is good for everyone? Each person has to
answer this question for himself or herself. The following exercise will help you
do this.

Work in groups of about three to five students. Each group should discuss the
following questions. Be prepared to explain your group's answers to the class.

1. Describe a situation in which you think you should try to help others
instead of just doing what you want for yourself.
2. Explain a situation in which you think you should do something for yourself
instead of trying to help others.
3. Sometimes people disagree about what is the best thing for everyone.
Describe a situation where this might happen. How do you think such
disagreements should be settled?
4. Describe some things your government does to help everyone in the
country. What other things could your government do? Why?