Intro to Human Rights

Lesson: Introduction to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Grade level: 6-8

Time: 2 class periods/ 55 mins each (110 minutes)

Objective: SWBAT identify universal human rights, explain the difference between local laws and universal human rights, give examples of violations and protections of human rights around the world, and explain the importance of the United Nations and the UDHR.

Day 1: Watch TedTalk introduction to the UDHR. Discuss pros and cons of UDHR in small groups (Round Robin discussion). A/B partners receive the Simplified version of the UDHR, found here. Students take turns reading each bullet point, and agree upon the key words in which they will highlight.

Day 2: Categorizing human rights violations. Students work in groups of 2-3. Partner A reads examples, partner B glues, Partner C posts examples on chart paper. Each 40 of the human rights are posted on chart paper around the room (I grouped some that were similar in nature). Groups are given an envelope of strips that each have HR violations that occur around the world. Student A reads violation to the group, group agrees on which HR is being violated in the example, Student B glues the back of the strip, Partner C walks around the room to post example on the corresponding human right in which the group agreed upon.

What I loved about this lesson was the rich conversations that came from the cooperative learning. It started with the shock value of the violations. Students asked several times if it was "real life" or a "real thing". After I assured them that is was, they were angered and they discussed in their groups how wrong the situations were and how they would react if they were treated so unfairly. I also loved the realization the students had about how some rights overlap and some violations disregard multiple rights. The objective of the lesson was to familiarize students with the 40 rights, but the outcomes were far greater than that. They started to investigate the injustices of the world, find empathy for those suffering, and are motivated to demand change.

Exit Ticket: As a culminating activity to reflect upon the learning from the past two lessons, students write a reflection journal. For my lower-end students (ESOL and ESE), I provide sentence frames to guide their thought processes.