Subject: Civics, Social Studies

Lesson Length: 40 - 45 mins

Topic: Understanding Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens

Grade Level: 4

Standards / Framework:

Brief Description: Students will be able to distinguish between protected rights and responsibilities as members of their community, state, and country.

Know Before You Start: Students should have an understanding of the terms right and responsibility.

Hook:

  • Read and discuss the sample comic.
    • Have students decide if the action in each panel is a right of a citizen or a responsibility of a citizen.

Activity:

  • Have students create a two-panel comic depicting a right and responsibility for citizens living in their community, state, or country.
    • Panel 1: Illustrate a protected right of a citizen.

    • Panel 2: Illustrate a responsibility of a citizen.

Closure:

  • Share and discuss the completed comics.
    • Were there any commonalities?
    • What would life be like if citizens didn’t follow through on their responsibilities?

Differentiation:

  • Allow students to use the speech-to-text feature.
  • Preteach vocabulary.

  • Provide examples and have students sort into rights and responsibilities.

  • Allow students to work in pairs or groups as needed.

  • Provide sentence starters as needed.

  • Allow students to create a comic in their home language.

  • Allow students to use the voiceover feature to read their comics aloud.

Resources:

  • Comic to print or display: Comic.