Adam Sattler ElEd 4366 Big Question Unit Grade: 4th NCSS standard 6: Power, Authority, and Governance Question: “Are we all equal?” 1. The student will examine different groups in the community and compare/contrast their social status over time. a. The students will identify who wrote the Declaration of Independence. b. The students will investigate who/what kinds of people owned slaves. c. The students will learn the importance of Brown vs. the Board of Education. 2. The student can recognize different ways power in the government is created, distributed, and checked. a. The student will learn who gets to elect government officials. b. The student will identify the three branches of the US government. c. The student will learn about checks and balances and how they help maintain equality. d. The student will identify qualities of a good leader. Sub questions: 1. What does “equal” mean? Is there a difference between “fair” and “equal”? 2. Who were the majority of the people that wrote the Declaration of Independence? Where there any minorities involved? 3. Did we all have the right to vote at first? Did people who could vote have power over those who didn’t? 4. Who makes the rules in our classroom? Sources: • Universal Declaration of Human Rights (www.un.org) • The Declaration of Independence • The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich • Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges • Woodrow for President by Peter W. Barnes and Cheryl Shaw Barnes • Oh, Freedom by Casey King and Linda Barrett Osborne Assessment: Students will create their own Declaration of Fourth Grade Rights. This will be a compilation of “articles” that the students create throughout the unit of what they feel needs to be present in a fourth grade class that is rooted equality. The “articles” will be evidence of what they have learned each day in the unit and will be put together on Friday to create their individual Declaration. As part of the finished product, studentswill write a brief preamble that will explain what they feel needs to be present in a classroom rooted in equality as well as serve as an introduction to their individual articles. Monday: To start off the unit I will ask the students what they think “equal” means and if there is a difference between “fair” and “equal”. I’ll brain storm with them things in their life that they don’t feel are fair or equal and write ideas down on the board. Keeping in mind objectives 1a. and 1b., we’ll look at the Declaration of Independence, particularly the part that talks about all men being created equal. Each student will get a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The students will create their first Article of Fourth Grade Rights by drawing a picture that represents a human right that they feel is most important. Tuesday: Today we’ll look at civil rights keeping in mind the question of what does “equal” mean and the importance of Brown vs. the Board of Education. I’ll start off with an activity that looks at separation in classrooms by having some of the students sit down on the rug by me while I read to them while the others get to listen while standing up in the far corner of the room. I’ll choose who gets to sit or stand based on something ridiculous like the color of their shoes. The purpose of this being to give the students a sense of how it feels to be segregated unfairly for no reason. I’ll address the notion of “separate but equal” in schools and what Brown vs. the Board of Ed. meant for change in schools. I’ll read from the book Through My Eyes which tells about a girl going to a newly desegregated school in 1960. At the end of the lesson students will work on their second Article by drawing what they feel represents equality in schools. Wednesday: Today we’ll look at voting keeping in mind the objective of learning who gets to elect government officials as well as question three (Did we all have the right to vote at first? Did people who could vote have power over those who didn’t?). This will give the students the chance to think back to the previous lesson about civil rights and how blacks didn’t always have the right to vote. We will read Woodrow for President which looks at the process of electing a president. Then students and I will brain storm about what we feel the qualities of a good leader are. I’ll write the answers on the board and using these answers the students will create a mini campaign poster. The poster will use the qualities we discussed to tell why people should vote for that student for president. The poster will be their third Article of Independence. Thursday: We will be talking about power today and looking at who has it and how we keep it in check. This deals with the objectives of identifying the three branches of government and checks and balances. I’ll divide the class up into three clusters of students each representing a different branch of the government (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial). We will discuss how the three branches check up on one another to make sure each does not have too much power over another. We’ll look at the question of whomakes rules in our classroom and, using our Democratic processes, create a new rule for the classroom. The Article for today will be to create a work of art that represents an aspect of a Democratic society (ex: People working together). Friday: We will look at the handout dealing with the Earths population and what would happen if we shrunk the population to just 100 people. We’ll look at how different (or how alike) we would be compared to the majority of people under those conditions. Students will take their four articles created over the week and arrange them on poster board. Somewhere on the board, in the middle or on the top, will be their preamble to their Declaration of Fourth Grade Rights. This will be a few sentences long and will serve to introduce the topics they learned about in the unit. The completed Declaration will be a statement of what the individual student feels is important to include in a classroom that believes in equality for