Lesson 1: What is a Good Citizen?
Teacher: Brittany Hughes
Grade Level: 4th Subject Area: Social Studies
Time Needed: 2 Class periods Topic: What is a good Citizen?
Essential Questions:
Lesson Goals:
MMSD Standards:
NCSS Standards:
Materials Needed:
Lesson Context: This is the opening lesson to a Wisconsin Government Unit. During this unit students will explore citizenship, duties of citizens, the 3 branches of the WI government, and how officials are elected. The students are learning about citizenship so that it can be tied into how citizens pay taxes and vote later in the unit. Also, being a good citizen is also examined to tie in how students can be good citizens and how elected officials should have characteristics of good citizens. This Unit is being taught right before the November elections and connections between the unit and real life will be made throughout.
Lesson Opening: Have the students sit in the back of the room. Read the first Chapter of Class President to the students. A chapter of this book will be read at the beginning of each lesson. Ask students about the characters they have met so far and what they think of them. Ask students if they think that each character is nice and if they would like to have this character in their classroom. Also ask students what they think might happen in the book given the information they found out in the first chapter and the title of the book.
Procedures:
ii. Follow rules and laws
iii. Participate in community
iv. Vote, recycle, help others, pay taxes
Closure/Assessment: Hand out an Exit Slip to each student and have them complete it before they leave. Remind students to put thought into these slips because you take them seriously and want to know how well they understood the lesson. Read through the responses given by the students and assess the students’ ability to both provide a reasonable time they were a good citizen and their ability to explain why this made them a good citizen.
EXIT SLIP:
Name a time when you were a good citizen. Explain why this made you a good citizen.
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Grade Level: 4th Subject Area: Social Studies
Time Needed: 2 Class periods Topic: What is a good Citizen?
Essential Questions:
- What is a citizen and what are different things that you can be a citizen of?
- What must one do to become a citizen of a particular place/thing?
- What are the characteristics and traits of a good citizen?
Lesson Goals:
- Students will discuss and explore the meaning of the term citizen by providing information about their prior knowledge and experiences with it.
- Students will take a citizenship test with their classmates and discuss the answers and their opinions on whether they think the test is a good idea.
- Students will listen to a guest speaker discuss his/her experiences with coming to The United States to become a citizen.
- Students will discuss what the term good citizen means and fill out a worksheet with their peers that will ask them to list characteristics and actions that represent good citizens.
- Fill out an Exit Slip and explain a time when they were a good citizen and why this made them one.
MMSD Standards:
- Political Science and Citizenship: Standard 4: Identify the characteristics of responsible citizenship.
NCSS Standards:
- Standard 3: People, Places, and Environments
- Standard 4: Individual Development and Identity
- Standard 5: Individuals, groups, and Institutions
- Standard 10: Civic Ideals and Practices
Materials Needed:
- Class President Novel by Johanna Hurwitz
- Chalkboard/Chalk
- Citizenship Test
- Guest Speaker who took citizenship test
- “Good Citizen” worksheet
- Citizen Exit Slip
Lesson Context: This is the opening lesson to a Wisconsin Government Unit. During this unit students will explore citizenship, duties of citizens, the 3 branches of the WI government, and how officials are elected. The students are learning about citizenship so that it can be tied into how citizens pay taxes and vote later in the unit. Also, being a good citizen is also examined to tie in how students can be good citizens and how elected officials should have characteristics of good citizens. This Unit is being taught right before the November elections and connections between the unit and real life will be made throughout.
Lesson Opening: Have the students sit in the back of the room. Read the first Chapter of Class President to the students. A chapter of this book will be read at the beginning of each lesson. Ask students about the characters they have met so far and what they think of them. Ask students if they think that each character is nice and if they would like to have this character in their classroom. Also ask students what they think might happen in the book given the information they found out in the first chapter and the title of the book.
Procedures:
- Have students go back to their desks and have the word “Citizen” written on the board. Ask students what this means. Push students to express their full understanding of this word and to really think about what this word means by asking them questions like “Who can be a citizen?” “Are there certain times/places someone cannot be a citizen of something”, “What are you citizens of?”, “What did you have to do to become a citizen of these things?”, “What do you get for being a citizen of these things”, etc. If students do not come up with the below information about citizens explain these different definitions of a citizen to them.
- Members of a particular country or state who have the right to live there.
- We are all citizens of Madison, WI, and America. They are citizens of the school they attend
- People who come to America from other countries need to take a special test to become a citizen. Does anyone have Parents that came from other countries?
- After talking about how sometimes when you are not a citizen of a specific place or thing you have to do something special to become a citizen. Explain to students that in order to be a citizen of The United States you need to either be born in the country. If you want to be a citizen of the United States but were not born here you must take and pass a citizenship test that the government gives to you. Hand out the Citizenship Test to each student and read through the questions and come up with answers for the questions as a class. After you have explored some of the questions/answers of the test ask students:
- Are these questions are fair?
- Do you know a lot of them?
- Who should stay/go in this classroom?
- What kind of information was on the test?
- Why do you think this is included on the test?
- Do you think knowing these answers would make you a better citizen?
- What do you think passing this test says about a person?
- At this time it would be a very beneficial and educational experience to bring in a guest speaker who did come to The United States and gained citizenship. The speaker can tell the students about where he/she came from, why they wanted to come to this country, and what they had to do to become a citizen. The speaker can tell the students how the test was administered to him/her and how they prepared for the test. The inclusion of this section is not necessary but could make the lesson a lot more powerful for students to hear this from first-hand experience. (In my class the Hmong student aid talked to my students about his experiences with becoming a citizen. I found this especially moving for the students because they see him and work with him in our classroom every day.)
- Tell the students that we now have a better understanding of what a citizen is, however there are distinctions between a good citizen and bad citizen. Ask students what they think it means to be a good citizen/what good citizens do? Ask the students to think of times they have witnessed someone or themselves being a good citizen and why this made them a good citizen.
- Brainstorm a few ideas as a class then have students form groups to fill out “Good Citizens” worksheet. Give students time to fill out sheets with a small group. This will allow the students to bounce ideas off each other and discuss with one another why particular actions/characteristics represent a good citizen.
- Have students come back together and discuss answers. Fill out a sheet on the overhead/chalkboard as the students provide them. Continue to encourage students to really explore the concept of a good citizen. It may also be beneficial for the teacher to point out times they have witnessed the students being good citizens such as when someone held the door open for the class, or when a student turned in a dollar he/she found, or when a student helped a classmate that was struggling.
ii. Follow rules and laws
iii. Participate in community
iv. Vote, recycle, help others, pay taxes
- Discuss the responses that students give as they are provided by asking the students why these particular traits/actions represent a good citizen.
Closure/Assessment: Hand out an Exit Slip to each student and have them complete it before they leave. Remind students to put thought into these slips because you take them seriously and want to know how well they understood the lesson. Read through the responses given by the students and assess the students’ ability to both provide a reasonable time they were a good citizen and their ability to explain why this made them a good citizen.
EXIT SLIP:
Name a time when you were a good citizen. Explain why this made you a good citizen.
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Good Citizen Worksheet
