Citizens' Rights + Responsibilities Coloring Activity

About this resource

What's inside this resource

The Citizens' Rights + Responsibilities Coloring Activity is a great way to introduce or review this topic for students.

Students will read a 1-page passage and will answer 15 questions, using what they read to help them.

The answer choices will tell students what color they will use to color their picture.

This is great morning work, early finishers and more.

Answer keys included.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Define citizen, right and responsibility in the terms the passage uses
Sort a three-item list into rights of citizens or responsibilities of citizens, as items 6, 7 and 11 require
Identify the U.S. Constitution as the document that protects citizens' rights

Teaching tips

The passage sits alone on its own page with Name and Date lines, so it can be read the day before and the two question pages set later as review.
Ten different colours are called for and they are listed at the head of the colouring page; a shared tub of those ten shades moves a class along faster than individual sets.
Items 6, 7 and 11 are the hinge of the whole set - each hands over a three-item list and asks whether it describes rights or responsibilities - so start there when a finished picture looks wrong.

Skills covered

Reading for definitions - the passage defines citizen, right and responsibility, and items 5 and 8 hand those definitions back and ask for the term.
Sorting rights from responsibilities - items 6, 7 and 11 set "freedom of expression, fair jury, run for elected office" against "obey all laws, serve on a jury, pay taxes" and against "respecting the rights of others, support and defend the U.S. Constitution".
Civics vocabulary in context - jury, taxes, due process, political process, the U.S. Constitution and military service all appear as answer choices as well as in the passage.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

How does the colouring connect to the questions?

Through the answer choices. Every choice on the two question pages has a colour name printed beneath it - question 3's four options are yellow, dark green, light green and red - and the picture on the colouring page is divided into regions numbered 1 to 15, one per question. Region 3 is then coloured with whichever colour belonged to the choice made for question 3.

What forms do the fifteen items take?

Three. Some complete a definition ("Money used to maintain an orderly society for the benefit of all citizens is called ______"), some ask "Which is described?" and give a three-item list to categorise, and items 9 and 10 are true/false. Item 14 also offers "Both a and b" and "Neither a nor b".

What ground does the passage cover before the questions begin?

One page. It defines a citizen as a person entitled to the legal rights and privileges protected under the government, gives freedom of speech, freedom of religion, voting and a fair and speedy legal trial as examples of rights, then defines a responsibility as a duty to help society and lists obeying laws, jury duty, paying taxes and military service if called upon.