Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Citizenship Lesson Plan.

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Citizenship, and supports the standard of identifying civic responsibilities in American democracy and analyzing their importance. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students:

  • What different communities do you belong to? How do you contribute to these communities?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Read aloud the description on the Citizenship topic page.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
  • Have students read one of the Related Reading articles. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Students take the Citizenship Challenge and Quiz, applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about citizenship while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-Movie: Produce a documentary  answering this question: Why are the amendments important to the Constitution? 
  • Make-a-Map: Make a concept map identifying and explaining the rights, mandatory responsibilities, and encouraged responsibilities of U.S. citizens.
  • Creative Coding: Code a learning game challenging players to sort rights and responsibilities into self-selected categories. 

More to Explore

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of citizenship with these topics: U.S. Constitution, Democracy, and Voting

Teacher Support Resources:

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments