Rights and Responsibilities

This activity can be used during a unit on citizenship or civil rights. It was designed to prepare students for the Rights and Responsibilities learning lab at the National Archives. Conduct this activity in class or as a homework assignment. Appropriate for grades 2-4.

Before students begin this activity, discuss the concepts of rights and responsibilities. Explain what their rights and responsibilities are as members of their home and school communities.

Divide the class into six groups. Ask them to brainstorm possible rights and responsibilities related to a group of people or themselves.

Discuss how to begin looking at historical documents. Instruct them to look for key words, topic sentences, dates, and names as a strategy for understanding a document’s content. Students can complete this activity in pairs, by themselves, or as a large group.

After completing the sorting activity, review the answers as a class. Remind students that some things, like voting or attending school, can be both rights and responsibilities. If a dispute arises, both students can be correct as long as they can explain their thinking.

Ask them to click the “When You’re Done” button and answer the assessment questions to complete the activity.