Unit Name:

Children around
responsibilities.

the

world

have

rights

and

Teachers:
Susan Kernaghan, Mark Adam, Lynton De Kock,
Winnie Beuane
Grade: 4

Stage One - Learning Purpose:

Conceptual
1. Learners understand that they have responsibilities connected to their rights.
2. Learners understand that children who live in areas affected by conflict and poverty are unable to have their rights protected.
3. Learners understand that UNICEF is an organisation dedicated to protecting childrens rights in areas of conflict and poverty.
Unit Questions
1. What are your rights and what responsibilities do you have in relation to these rights?
2. When a country or area is affected by poverty or conflict how does this affect the lives of the children who live there?
3. What does UNICEF stand for and how does it help children around the world?
Competency
Inquiry - Learners will be able to identify situations where the rights of the child are not being met and the underlying cause of this
English Language Arts - Learners will be able to use persuasive language to convince others to support the work of UNICEF
School-wide Conceptual Standard:
Responsible Citizens Respect for others, commitment to participate responsibly in political, economic, social and cultural life
Confident Individuals self-respect, secure values and beliefs
Successful Learners enthusiasm and motivation for learning, determination to reach high standards of achievement, openness to new thinking
and ideas

Stage Two: Illustrative Content

Listen to the Wind the story of Dr. Greg and 3 cups
of tea. Poverty in the Himalayan village.
Samir and Samiras Story. Poverty in Brazil
Stage Three: Questions
UNIT QUESTIONS

What rights do you have?

What is your responsibility to ensure

your rights are met?

What are the differences between the

life of a child who lives in an area affected by
conflict and your life?

What are the differences between the

life of a child who lives in an area affected by
poverty and your life?

What does UNICEF stand for?

How does UNICEF help children?

GUIDING QUESTIONS
What is a Right?
Who has Rights?
Who is responsible for your Rights?
What is UNICEF?
What does UNICEF do?
What Rights do you have?
What responsibilities do you have?
What are the Rights of the Child?
How have Rights changed over the
years?
What event provoked the writing of
Human Rights?
PROVOCATIVE QUESTIONS
Who (should) decides what a Right is?
To what extent should culture affect
peoples Rights?
What affect do global issues have on
an individual or on a society?

Unit Understanding Goal:

Learners understand that everyone shares the responsibility to ensure the Rights of others are met but due to conflict, poverty, and
cultural values of a society not everyone has their Rights protected which leads to inequality.
Stage Four: Assessment
CULMINATING DEMONSTRATION OF UNDERSTANDING
Option 1: Mastery Using a photograph from the pre-assessment task as a prompt write a paragraph/s or record a video in response to the question
What Human Right do you think is being met/is not being met in this photograph? In your opinion, what has caused this to happen?
Option 2: Understanding Compare your life in Qatar to Jacobs. What are the similarities and differences? How does your life compare to Jacobs?
What rights and responsibilities do you share with Jacob? How would you persuade people to help Jacob? Students can record answers using - Venn
diagrams, charts, recording explanation on iPads and persuasive writing.
Option 3: Contextual
The Goal is to raise awareness in the school that some children do not have their rights protected. The challenge is that that most students in the
school have always had their rights protected and are unaware of the life many children have to face. The obstacle to overcome is that students
may not believe you, as they have no experience of living without rights. You will need to provide good evidence from a real life example and
persuade lower school students why it is important that all children have their rights protected.
Role - You are an ambassador for UNICEF. You have been asked to make the school community aware that some children in the world do not have
their rights protected.
The target Audience is the students and teachers of the lower school.
Situation You have a week to raise awareness of the life that many children face around the world. Jacob lived in Sudan but decided to leave and
move to Ethiopia. You will need to use all your persuasive techniques to persuade the school community that Jacobs rights, and the rights of other
children in similar situations, are not protected and to take action by supporting UNICEF
Product Design and produce a poster sharing Jacobs story and your findings about human rights that persuades students and teachers to support
UNICEF. Your poster will be displayed around the school.
Success criteria
Humanities - Identify what right has been denied. Why did this happen? How does it affect Jacobss life? What needs to change? Why does it need
to change?
English Language Arts - Use features of persuasive writing: - Must stay to incorporate ELA standards. The present tense, emotive language, explain
point of view and give reasons, vary sentence structure.
Your poster is to contain the following aspects/features: The right chosen must be clearly explained and a link must be made to the central idea , use
alliteration, using different fonts (lettering), eye catching slogans/logos, pictures, colour, list benefits, use famous people or quotes.
Standards
Humanities - NCSS Social Studies 2010, Elementary, Civic ideas and practices- Drawing illustrations of examples of participation supportive of civic
ideals and practices, Identify and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizens, Writing reports, letters, or brief position statements to describe
an issue, actions to address it, and reasons for supporting a particular position over others
English Language Arts - CCSS: ELA & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, & Technical Subjects K-5, CCSS: Grade 4, Writing - Text Types and
Purposes
1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection,
organization, and analysis of content.

STUDENT QUESTIONS

Learning Purposes: Knowledge

Learning Purposes: Skills

Of Human Rights

Persuasive writing
W.4.1. Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view
with reasons and information.
W.4.1a. Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an
organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the
writers purpose.
W.4.1b. Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details.
W.4.1c. Link opinion and reasons using words and phrases (e.g., for
instance, in order to, in addition).
W.4.1d. Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion
presented.

Learning Purpose
KNOWLEDGE
Humanities
Learners will be able to identify
the rights and responsibilities of
citizens

SKILLS
English Language Arts
Learners will be able to write
opinion pieces with reasons and
information to support a point of
view.

ADDITIONAL ASSESSMENTS
Pre-Assessment
'I see... I think... I wonder...'
A large selection of photographs of children is
presented to the students representing children
around the world, from different economic and social
backgrounds
etc.
Students
generate
3
statements/questions starting with these phrases
making connections with Human Rights.

Students to view a selection of persuasive writing

that appears in print media.
Discuss the sentence type, punctuation and language
used to persuade the audience.
Record the students responses.

Assessment
Formative
In the see step, after students have written down
the obvious details encourage them to look again for
less obvious features.
In the think step ask What makes you say that? to
extend students thinking on the observations they
have made in the see step. Observe if justifications
are firmly rooted in the image, or if they based more
on personal opinion.
In the wonder step, are students able to formulate
broader questions that connect the object in question
with the bigger picture? Or are they just asking for
some specific facts about the object itself. There is
nothing wrong with asking specific factual questions,
but students need to also go beyond this.
Diagnostic
Are students able to extend their thinking beyond
describing what they can see. Are they able to
identify the product, the argument, the supporting
facts and the persuasive language techniques.

Stage Five: Learning Experiences

TAPPING INTO CURRENT UNDERSTANDING
Provocation. Students will have their right to free time denied as well as another right. Students are unaware that this activity will take place. The disruption should not last for a long period of time. The
co-operation of the school principle or depute is required. She should visit classrooms before the event so that she can witness the normal learning environment, and then visit again to see the difference
in the classroom. Snack time is cancelled without warning, instead students are given work to complete without support. They must complete the work in silence. This denies them the right to effective
education. The principle visits the classroom to witness the change and asks the students to explain what is going on and how they feel about it. It is then explained to the students that they have been
denied their rights. The following discussion takes place whilst students eat their snack.
See, think, wonder. Following the provocation a large selection of photographs of children is presented to the students. The photos represent children around the world, from different economic and social
backgrounds etc. Students choose one they feel strongly about. Students are asked first to record what they observe in the photograph. Students are then asked to record what they think is happening in
the photograph based on their observations. Finally students are asked to wonder, based on what they have seen and what they think is happening in the picture. They are encouraged to ask questions
that relate to the wider concept of equal rights.
EXPLORING THE EVIDENCE
6 Hat Thinking. Samir and Samiras story. Use street view on Google Earth to view Sao Paulo? Brazil so that students can understand the context of the environment. View the PowerPoint about what
life is like for Samir and Samira. Use the perspectives of the 6 Hats to think about and record students thinking. Starting with the white hat, next the red, followed by yellow, then green/black (switch back
and forth to challenge thinking) and finally blue. During the blue thinking students should decide the best way to record the discussion. Before starting a new hat question, students are given time to
think (about the new perspective), pair (talk about it with a partner), share (with the whole class discussion). Formative Assessment students are able to maintain the perspective of the hat being
discussed. Students are able to devise an effective method of recording the discussion that provides the viewer with clear information. (Due to the nature of this topic, I would not allow students of this
age to research independently. Material available on the internet is aimed at adults. The vocabulary and the content is not suitable for young children. Therefore, students are presented with suitable
material selected by teachers.)
GENERATING THEORIES
Sentence starters. Use these sentence starters to allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the concept. 1. Now that I know I have the right to __________ it is my responsibility to
__________ because 2. My life would be very different if I lived in Sao Paulo because 3. UNICEF is a world wide organisation that 4. This is one example of a situation where an organisation has
helped protect childrens rights Formative Assessment Students are able to make connections with the concept of rights and responsibilities and the need for rights to be protected. Students are able
to identify the cause of a right not being met.
TESTING THEORIES
Read Listen to the Wind. The story of Dr. Greg and 3 cups of tea. Create a Venn diagram to compare the differences and similarities between the lives of the students, Samir and Samira and the children
in Listen to the Wind. Formative assessment Students are able to make the connection between the rights and responsibilities all the children share. Students are able to identify what rights are being
met in each situation. Students are able to identify what rights are not being met and the cause of this.
REFLECTING & ACTING
Students complete a reflection sheet/video record the responses to the following questions. 1. What have I learnt during this unit? 2. What are the implications for me? 3. What are the implications for my
immediate community? (School, family etc.) 4. What are the implications for the wider world? 5. What can I do about it? Formative assessment Students are able to identify the rights of others and their
responsibility to do what they can to respect the rights of friends and family. Students are able to understand the need to support organisations that protect the rights of children around the world.

Stage Five (cont.): SKILL BUILDING

Skill: Persuasive Writing
Setting the Context: Read and/or watch I Wanna Iguana! by Karen Kaufman Orlooff and David Catrow. What did Alex want? What did him mom want? What did Alex do to try and persuade his mom to

get him an iguana? Looking for students to identify that Alex had facts, arguments and persuasive language features. Start a list of words, phrases and techniques that are persuasive and display these on
the wall as a reference.
Deconstruction & Modeling: Compare to pieces of text about butterflies. Work in pairs. One student has a report about butterflies; the other student has a persuasive piece about butterflies. (Why I like

butterflies) The student with report reads to their partner the facts about butterflies. The student with the persuasive writing highlights the same facts within the persuasive text. Together students
highlight with a different colour the persuasive vocabulary and phrases in the persuasive text. Students add to the list of persuasive words, phrases and techniques on the wall. Students discuss the
similarities and difference between the texts and create a chart. Students should be able to identify that both texts had information but the persuasive text used that information to support an opinion, used
emotive/persuasive language techniques. Students are able to identify the structure of both pieces of writing, (Introduction, related ideas together in the same paragraph, transition words/phrases,
conclusion.)
Joint Construction / Guided Practice: We have the right to play verses we have the right to an education. Students are divided into two groups. One group will argue for more recess time. One group will

argue to keep recess time the same. Students are given time to discuss their rights and responsibilities and how they can persuade the opposing group. Students are encouraged to consider what facts and
persuasive language techniques would best support their opinion. Students should predict what arguments the opposing group will think of and be ready to respond. The class then debates the topic.
Following the debate students work in small groups to construct an opinion piece of writing using the writing process. (Planning, writing, editing, publishing). Success criteria: A clear introduction, related
ideas grouped together to support the opinion, reasons should be supported by facts, persuasive writing techniques used, transition words and phrases, and a conclusion. Peer assessment students share
their writing with another group. Students assess if the success criteria has been achieved. Are students able to identify the features of persuasive writing? Can they make suggestions to improve the
writing?
Independent Construction / Freer Practice: Students independently use the writing process to create a piece of writing that informs the reader about Pennies for Peace (Listen to the Wind charity) whilst

persuading them that it is a worthy cause and to make a donation.

who receive education through Pennies for Peace.

Students should make clear references to the rights (and responsibilities) of the children (particularly girls) of Pakistan and Afghanistan

Success criteria:
W.4.1. Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.
W.4.1a. Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the
writers purpose.
W.4.1b. Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details.
W.4.1c. Link opinion and reasons using words and phrases (e.g., for instance, in order to, in addition).
W.4.1d. Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented.
Stage Six: Resources
Jacobs story - http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Refugees-and-Human-Rights-6204325/
http://www.crae.org.uk
Listen to the Wind, The story of Dr. Greg and three cups of tea, by Greg Mortenson. ISBN-10: 0803730586 http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Wind-Story-Greg-Three/dp/0803730586
Pennies for Peace http://www.penniesforpeace.org/forkids/
The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss. http://www.amazon.com/The-Sneetches-Other-Stories-Seuss/dp/0394800893 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdLPe7XjdKc
Samir and Samiras story in Brazil - http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/A-childhood-in-one-of-Brazil-and-39-s-most-dangerous-slum-6428565/
Youtube UNICEF rights of the child article videos
Find a place online to save the photos of children so that Gordon and Sasha can see the options available to the students.
I wanna iguana book amazon and youtube.com video
Butterfly text one factual information about butterflies and one persuasive text about butterflies. Same information contained in each.

Stage Seven: How well did we achieve what we set out to achieve?
1. To what extent did the students achieve the target understandings?
2. To what extent did the assessment tasks allow students to demonstrate understanding?
3. To what extent did the learning activities help students build understanding?
4. To what extent did the resources help support students in building understanding?

CRITERIA FOR AN EFFECTIVE UNIT:

1. The understanding goal:
a.
is an enduring idea that explores an important concept
b.
has relevance and significance beyond the classroom and across time and place.
2. The unit questions:
a.
are broad and conceptual enough to motivate and sustain inquiry
b.
allow students to develop their own understanding of the understanding goal
c.
are supported by guiding questions which explore particular illustrative content and provocative questions which explore relevant values and ethics
3. The culminating assessment task(s):
a.
requires students to demonstrate mastery of extensive knowledge and skills
b.
moves beyond recitation of knowledge and demonstration of skills and requires students to explain, interpret or apply complex information in
addressing a concept, problem or issue.
c.
is open-ended enough to allow students of varying ability levels to be challenged
d.
requires that students thoroughly explore alternative interpretations, solutions, strategies or perspectives.
e.
is connected to the world beyond the classroom where possible
f.
clearly identifies as learning purposes for the unit the knowledge, skills and dispositions a student will need to be successful on the culminating task
4. Formative assessment:
a.
includes specific tasks early in the unit, which allow students and teachers to assess each students current learning in relation to the learning
purposes (understanding, knowledge and skills) .
b.
supplies students with models which allow them to understand what excellence looks like with regard to the culminating task and the major skills to
be learned
c.
gives students opportunities to personalize the learning purposes by setting their own learning goals within the unit learning purposes
d.
includes guidance in selecting strategies to help them work towards the achievement of their learning goals - Directed Learning
e.
includes tasks / strategies which allow students and teachers to track their progress towards achievement of the learning purposes and in particular
of student goals
5. The learning experiences:
a.
include a learning purpose for each activity, which is communicated to students
b.
allow students opportunities to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to be successful on the culminating task
c.
allow students to build and test theories related to the unit questions through a structured process of inquiry
d.
engage all students by challenging them to think in open-ended ways, consider alternatives and make connections
e.
are adjusted for individuals and groups in response to formative assessments
6. The resources:
a.
include a range of different media
b.
include a range of different levels appropriate to challenge all students
c.
directly support achievement of the learning purposes
7. The action component
a.
allows students to reflect on their learning ( both content and process) and plan for future action in relation to both.
b.
supports students in ongoing action where possible