Lesson 2

Lesson Topic: Citizenship Grade level: 1st Grade Length of lesson: 45 minutes

Desired Results
State Content Standard(s):
 1.2.4 Define what a citizen is and describe the characteristics of good citizenship

 X.b Identify examples of rights and responsibilities of citizens

Central Focus: Essential Question(s):

Students will understand:
 Students will understand what a citizen is and  What makes an action good versus bad?
the five traits of being a good citizen: respect,  How can you show good citizenship?
integrity, responsibility, compassion, and  How can you show bad citizenship?
honesty

 Students will understand how their actions

represent good or bad citizenship

Student objectives (outcomes):

Students will be able to:
 Students will be able to understand what a citizen is and their role in citizenship in the school and
classroom. 

 Students will be able to understand how their actions represent good or bad citizenship.

Assessment Evidence
Performance Task(s): Other Evidence:
 Classify different actions in a good versus  Before the lesson begins, access what students
bad category.  know about their actions. Ask students questions
 List actions performed by another person that about when they performed a good or bad action,
show good or bad citizenship.  and how it made them feel when they did either
one. 
 Separate a list of good versus bad citizenship  During the lesson, the formative assessment will
by gluing different actions into corresponding be through seeing which actions students
“good” versus “bad” columns. constitute as good or bad. 
 There will be a whole group-based discussion
during the read aloud and a small group
discussion when completing the good versus bad
citizenship worksheet. 
 Students will be completing an anchor chart over
the actions of the main character in The Bad
Seed. They will also be completing a worksheet
in their Citizenship Book over good versus bad
citizenship actions. 
 Learning Plan
Learning Activities:
To start the lesson, we will review the five traits of citizenship we learned in the previous lesson: respect,
integrity, responsibility, compassion, and honesty. Ask the students what they remember about each trait and if
they can recall any examples we talked about. This is a good way to informally assess the students’
understanding of the different traits. Next, introduce the book The Bad Seed, which you will be completing a
read aloud over. Ask the students what they think the book is about based off of the title. See if they can
speculate what happens to the bad seed by the end of the book. 

After the discussion about the cover of the book, tell the students that today you will be talking about good and
bad citizenship. Inform them that the actions they do can either produce good or bad citizenship. Remind the
students about the examples you talked about at the beginning of the lesson that followed the five traits, and
how those are ways to show good citizenship. Next, have the students think about ways that they could possibly
show bad citizenship. After this discussion, refer students to the anchor chart you will complete as you do the
read aloud for The Bad Seed. (For this anchor chart, title it The Bad Seed and make two columns, Good
Citizenship and Bad Citizenship) Tell the students that as we read this book, we will be writing down some of the
ways that the seed shows bad citizenship and good citizenship. 

As you begin the read aloud, read a couple pages, and then ask the students some of the ways that the seed is
showing bad citizenship. Write down their answers under the “Bad Citizenship” column on the anchor chart.
Continue this until you reach the part in the book when the seed starts to show good citizenship. Ask the
students how the seed is showing good citizenship and write their answers on the anchor chart. At the end of
the book, ask the students to remind us of some of the good and bad ways the seed showed citizenship. Ask
what changed the seed's mind and made it start to show good citizenship, or why the seed showed bad
citizenship in the beginning of the book.

After the read aloud, pass back each student's “My Citizenship Book” and a set of Good/Bad Citizen tabs. Have
the student turn to the page in their books where it says good citizenship and bad citizenship on the top of the
page. Next, have the students cut out their tabs and place them to the side of their books. As the students are
cutting, tell them that these tabs include ways that they can show good or bad citizenship. After the students are
done cutting, have them talk with their groups about which tabs show good or bad citizenship. The teacher will
walk around the groups and see what they are discussing; this is a good time for an informal observation to see
how much the students are understanding of good versus bad. Once they are finished discussing, have the
students color the “good citizenship” tabs green and glue them under the good citizenship column on their
worksheet. Model this for your students with one of the tabs under the projector. Have the students color the
“bad citizenship” tabs red and glue them under the bad citizenship column on their worksheet. As the students
are completing this, walk around the room to check for understanding. Finally, collect the student’s “My
Citizenship Book” when they are all finished. 

Resources and Materials:

 My Citizenship Book (see attached file)
 The Bad Seed by Jory John
 The Bad Seed Anchor Chart
 Good/Bad Citizen tabs (see attached file)
 Projector
 Drawing utensils (pencil, crayons, colored pencils, markers, etc)
 Scissors
 Glue

Required Accommodations/Modifications:
 Before class, go over the list of vocabulary words that was given to the students receiving special
education in the previous lesson. Add the terms “good” and “bad” to the vocabulary list. Talk about things
that they do that they think are good versus bad and how those things have made them feel in the past.
Talk about the examples that you discussed in the previous lesson to remind the students what the class
talked about. When the students are working in groups on their worksheet, check in with these students
for their understanding and if they need any additional help.
  The students that are classified as gifted and talented could help the students who are receiving special
education. The gifted and talented students could help guide their peers through the conversation and
identify some examples they could talk about as a class.

Additional Modifications for Individual Students:

 ENL students may require a set of Good/Bad Citizen Tabs that include their first language and one in
English. This would be a way for these students to feel confident in their answers for good versus bad
citizenship while also continuing to learn English.

  Struggling readers have the opportunity to have a picture that matches the word on the Good/Bad
Citizen Tabs. This allows them to see a picture version of the action instead of relying solely on reading
the words that match the action.

Extending the Lesson

 Have students think about times when they showed good citizenship or when they showed bad
citizenship. Have them think about how each action made them feel and why they think they felt that
way. They could draw pictures of them performing each action and write a sentence about how it made
them feel below each picture.
Adapted from Understanding by Design, Expanded 2nd Edition (2005) by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development.