PBS
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
What rights are guaranteed to students? Do they align with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was approved by the United Nations in 1948? Middle and high schoolers present persuasive arguments about the rights they believe...
Stanford University
Civil Rights or Human Rights?
Young citizens consider the American civil rights movement as part of the global struggle for human rights. After using a timeline activity to learn about the major events in the civil rights movement, class members study Malcolm X's...
Stanford University
Observing Human Rights Day
How much intervention is appropriate for America to take in cases of human rights violations? Class members ponder a question that has lingered since the birth of America with a series of primary sources that reflect the degree to which...
NPR
Civil Rights of Japanese-American Internees
Prompted by a viewing of Emiko and Chizu Omori’s Rabbit in the Moon, a documentary about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, high schoolers examine a series of documents, including the Bill of Rights and the UN’s...
Curated OER
The Language of Human Rights
Did you know that there are 15.2 million refugees in the world? High schoolers will read "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and learn how they can get involved to lower this surprising number. To really encourage involvement,...
EngageNY
Close Reading: The Introduction to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
As part of a group of lessons, your class will return to the primary text for this unit, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Key vocabulary as well as close reading strategies continue to be the focus skills; however, this lesson...
EngageNY
Getting Ready to Learn About Human Rights: Close Reading of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
Introduce young readers to informational texts with a well-designed, ready-to-use, and Common Core-aligned unit. Young readers learn a variety of skills while studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). As the first...
Curated OER
Are Gay Rights "Special"?
Inspire critical thinking with this activity, which prompts students to compare lesbian, gat, bisexual, and transgender rights with the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. By collecting topical articles about...
Curated OER
Human Rights
High schoolers read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and then research countries which have had human right violations.
Advocates for Human Rights
Human Rights in the U.S.
Here's a fun, creative approach to the profoundly important issue of human rights. Young citizens do three activities, two of which involve them finding images from magazines that reflect human rights of their choosing and creating a...
EngageNY
Building Background: A Short History of Human Rights
Before continuing to read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, learners need to understand why and how this document was written. First, show and discuss a video from UNICEF to demonstrate the need for such a document. Then have...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit 1 Assessment: Human Rights Vocabulary and Common Prefixes
Here is a mid-unit assessment for a group of lessons studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The first half of this instructional activity calls for several forms of review. Your class will review the content of the...
EngageNY
Main Ideas in Informational Text: Analyzing a Firsthand Human Rights Account for Connections to Specific Articles of the UDHR
Lesson 10 in a series of human rights lessons focuses on the skills of finding evidence and summarizing. Your young readers work to compare the two texts they have read in this unit: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
EngageNY
Main Ideas in Informational Text: Analyzing a Firsthand Human Rights Account
Although this is part of a series, lesson plan nine has your class take a break from their close study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) text to read the firsthand account “Teaching Nepalis to Read, Plant, and Vote” by...
EngageNY
Vocabulary: Human Rights
Your class continues to explore the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In addition to learning about the background of this text, learners work on the skill of identifying and understanding key academic vocabulary....
EngageNY
Identifying Theme: Connecting Passages from Esperanza Rising to Human Rights
Even fictional characters have rights. Scholars read selected passages from Pam Muñoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising and consider which of the five categories from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the text relates to. They glue each...
EngageNY
End of Unit 1 Assessment: On-Demand Analysis of a Human Rights Account
The last instructional activity in this unit about human rights consists of a final assessment. To demonstrate the skills your class has acquired throughout this unit, they will work with a new article entitled "From Kosovo to the United...
Curated OER
Life as a Refugee
Lesson 1 from a Refugees and Human Rights unit is based on the UNHCR video “Working with Refugees.” Pupils gain an understanding of the role the United Nations plays in protecting and assisting refugees worldwide and have an opportunity...
Curated OER
Understanding Human Rights Through One Woman's Struggle: Aung San Suu Kyi
Students analyze human rights in the international community. In this human rights lesson plan, students explore the United Nations, and the Declaration of Human Rights. Students read about Aung San Suu Kyi and watch a video about human...
Curated OER
When Human Rights Are Wronged
Students explore the concept of human rights by examining the arresting of prominent Chinese dissidents who are members of the China Democratic Party. They develop and defend their own Bill of Human Rights and write a reflective essay.
EngageNY
Readers Theater and the UDHR
Let's make connections! Using the resource, class members make connections between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and their readers theater scripts. To finish, they complete a worksheet to evaluate the role of narration in...
EngageNY
Launching Readers Theater Groups: Identifying Passages from Esperanza Rising for Readers Theater that Connect to the UDHR
Teach young readers how to compare two texts and select passages that exemplify a specific theme with Lesson 6 from Unit 3. Begin by modeling how an expert reader selects examples from a text, performing a think aloud on how Article 2 of...
Curated OER
Writing Exercises: The Role of the United Nations
When did the United Nations begin? Have they been successful at keeping peace? And, what is the Declaration of Human Rights? Each of these questions needs a complete and well-thought-out answer, it's up to your class to do the job. Great...
Curated OER
Human Rights Arts Project and Research Paper
Students examine human rights abuses in thirty countries, specifically explore abuses in Dominican Republic's Trujillo regime, research one country with significant human rights abuses, use Preamble to U.S. Constitution as measure of...