Citizenship Lesson 2
Subject: Social Studies Topic: Citizenship
Grade Level: 7th Expected Time: 2 hours
could be split into 2 lessons
Unit Essential Questions:
1. What makes a person a good citizen
2. How should we decide who can become a citizen?
Guiding Questions:
VI. Power authority and governance
X. Civic Ideals and Practices
MMSD Grade Four Social Studies Standards:
Behavioral Sciences:
4. Use concepts such as role, status, and social class in describing the interaction of individuals and social groups. (P) (6-6, 7-9, 8-2, 8-6)
History:
4. Interpret and evaluate sources of information presented in graphs, charts, maps, timelines, etc. (S) (6-1, 6-4, 6-5, 6-7, 8-2, 8-5)
Political science:
1. Describe the purpose of government and how its powers are acquired, used, and justified. (P) (6-1, 6-4, 6-5, 8-1, 8-3, 8-4, 8-5, 8-6)
UW-Madison Teacher Education Standards:
Standard 3: Manages Learning Environment- In this lesson students will be in the classroom and the hallway in order to “walk the path of citizenship. I have created a structure so that students can learn through the activities even though they are operating in multiple spaces.
Lesson Objectives:
Materials:
Lesson Context:
This lesson is the second in a unit on citizenship that I will be teaching at Sherman Middle school this semester. Students are in a unit called “The Power of Perspective” and in social studies they are learning about Latin America. My cooperating teacher asked me to teach the students about citizenship and explore immigration with the students. Some of the students in my class or someone in their family is undocumented. This topic hits close to home for many students.
Lesson Opening:
We will have a class share about the different types of people who try to immigrate to the US. I will ask students to organize themselves in a corner of the room (vote with your feet) based on whether they thought everyone had a chance to take a path to citizenship or whether some people had no option to immigrate legally. The last questions I will have the students leave with is, “Who decides who gets to become a citizen?” and “why do they get to decide” and “what should we do if we disagree with the decision that has been made?”
Assessment:
Subject: Social Studies Topic: Citizenship
Grade Level: 7th Expected Time: 2 hours
could be split into 2 lessons
Unit Essential Questions:
1. What makes a person a good citizen
2. How should we decide who can become a citizen?
Guiding Questions:
- How does a person become a citizen?
- Who is allowed to become a citizen?
- Who has the authority to make these rules?
VI. Power authority and governance
X. Civic Ideals and Practices
MMSD Grade Four Social Studies Standards:
Behavioral Sciences:
4. Use concepts such as role, status, and social class in describing the interaction of individuals and social groups. (P) (6-6, 7-9, 8-2, 8-6)
History:
4. Interpret and evaluate sources of information presented in graphs, charts, maps, timelines, etc. (S) (6-1, 6-4, 6-5, 6-7, 8-2, 8-5)
Political science:
1. Describe the purpose of government and how its powers are acquired, used, and justified. (P) (6-1, 6-4, 6-5, 8-1, 8-3, 8-4, 8-5, 8-6)
UW-Madison Teacher Education Standards:
Standard 3: Manages Learning Environment- In this lesson students will be in the classroom and the hallway in order to “walk the path of citizenship. I have created a structure so that students can learn through the activities even though they are operating in multiple spaces.
Lesson Objectives:
- SWBAT identify and explain different paths to citizenship.
- SWBAT analyze a map and a reading and use context clues to match each definition with a specific path.
- SWBAT identify the challenges that come along with certain paths of citizenship.
- SWBAT notice that certain people don’t have an option to immigrate legally into this country.
Materials:
- Painters tape
- Signs for each of the routes to citizenship.
- One page handout that summarizes the key point of each type of citizenship.
- Blank paper writing utensils.
- Document camera
- Model map of the paths of citizenship
- Note-cards with different immigrant identities
- Posters for vote with your feet.
Lesson Context:
This lesson is the second in a unit on citizenship that I will be teaching at Sherman Middle school this semester. Students are in a unit called “The Power of Perspective” and in social studies they are learning about Latin America. My cooperating teacher asked me to teach the students about citizenship and explore immigration with the students. Some of the students in my class or someone in their family is undocumented. This topic hits close to home for many students.
Lesson Opening:
- In the hallway students will walk all of the different “paths of citizenship.” following the instructions to turn around where they need to pause, when they need to and start over when necessary.
- Back in the classroom students will recreate the paths to citizenship on their paper, including comparative lengths, labels, and obstacles. Once students have begun I will post a map on the document camera so that students can make sure they included relevant details and the correct labels.
- Students will process as a table the differences between the paths and what they believe the differences represented.
- Students will receive a scaffolded note sheet including all of different ways of applying for citizenship.
- As a class we will go through a short presentation and students will fill in the 2 key points about each type for citizenship. Certain statistics and information will already be on the sheet.
- Students will label each path on their math in pencil with the definition that they think fits the characteristics of that path the best.
- Students will share in their table groups the labels they chose and why.
- I will ask some students to volunteer and show which labels they chose for each path and why,
- I will explain how I created the map and give students a copy of that map so that as a class we have a unified map to reference.
- I will explain that many different ways for labelling the map could work depending on the justifications for the choices
- Each student will receive a notecard with an immigrant identity (international students, minimum wage worker, PHD in engineering)
- The student will draw on their map with marker which path to citizenship they believe the immigrant could take to try to achieve citizenship.
- Students will write on their notecard high, medium, or low, depending on the likelihood they believe the person has of becoming a citizen. On the notecards they will give justifications for their ranking on the other side, at least 4 sentences.
We will have a class share about the different types of people who try to immigrate to the US. I will ask students to organize themselves in a corner of the room (vote with your feet) based on whether they thought everyone had a chance to take a path to citizenship or whether some people had no option to immigrate legally. The last questions I will have the students leave with is, “Who decides who gets to become a citizen?” and “why do they get to decide” and “what should we do if we disagree with the decision that has been made?”
Assessment:
- I will collect students “paths to citizenship” maps
- I will collect students immigrant notecards
- I will informally observe class discussions