Basic Democratic Ideas:  Liberty, Justice, Equality, Rights and Responsibility Unit

 

This unit has helped us discover the importance of “citizens” taking responsibility for the basic democratic idea of liberty and justice for all.  Along with rights and justice becomes responsibility for all citizens within a school, community, state and country.

 

Unit Culminating Activity:                         On-Demand

 

 

Core Content:  SS-EP-1.3.1   Students will define basic democratic terms.

                          SS-EP-1.3.2   Students will identify and give examples of ways to show

                                               good citizenship at home, at school, and in the community.

 

Academic Expectation:  1.1   

            Students use reference tools such as dictionaries, almanacs, encyclopedias, and  

            computer references.

 

Academic Expectation:  1.2

            Students make sense of the variety of materials they read.

 

Academic Expectation:  1.11

Students write using appropriate forms, conventions, and styles to communicate ideas and information to different audiences for different purposes.

 

 

Situation:  Within your community you have noticed that many citizens have become careless with their civic responsibilities of taking care of nature.  Littering has become a major issue and the problem continues to worsen.   P.R.I.D.E., the local clean-up organization has visited your school and asked for your assistance in promoting a county wide clean-up along with ideas of how to stop the littering that has created a dump in your county. 

 

Task:  Your job is to convince the people within your community to take part in the PRIDE clean-up and to stop littering your county.  The best way to convince people to do the right thing is to provide awareness of the issue of littering and to explain why this issue needs to stop (how will littering affect the people of the community personally).  Your presentation should be informational, persuasive and convincing.  Choose the form that you believe would be the best for your purpose and audience.   Choose one of the following forms to promote community awareness and necessity of change:

 

-Letter to the Editor of the County Paper

 

-Speech to be presented at Open House

 

-Brochure to be sent home with all students at your school

Scoring Rubric for Culminating Activity –Responsibility Unit

 

Name_____________________________________________

 

 

 

           

Responsibility Unit

 

CATEGORY

1

2

3

4

Content

Attempts to establish general purpose; lacks focus, limited awareness of audience's needs, and limited idea development

Attempts to establish and maintain purpose, some lapses on focus, some awareness of audience needs, some idea development

Establishes and maintains focused purpose, indicates an awareness of audience needs, demonstrated depth of ideas and support

Establishes and maintains an authentic and insightful focused purposed

Structure

Ineffective or weak organization limited and/or ineffective transitional elements, ineffective or incorrect sentence structure

Demonstrates logical organization Demonstrates some effective transitions simple sentence structure with an attempt of more complex

logical, coherent organization logical, effective transitional elements control of variety of sentence structure

careful and subtle organization that enhances the purpose varied and subtle transition elements control of variety and complexity in sentence structure to enhance meaning

Convention

lack of control of grammar and usage incorrect or ineffective word choice lack of control in correctness

some control of grammar and usage simplistic and/or imprecise word choice some control of correctness with errors that don't interfere with communication

Control of grammar and usage acceptable word choice appropriate for audience and purpose control of correctness.

control of grammar and usage to enhance meaning accurate, rich and precise word choice appropriate for audience and purpose control of correctness to enhance communication

 

 

Total Score out of 12                                    12 divided by 4