Teaching Arkansas Standards through Games: Annenberg Classroom’s That’s Your Right
How many hours a week do you think your students spend playing games on their phones, computers, or consoles? How many hours a week do you think they spend thinking about the ideas and concepts they are learning in the classroom? When considering ways to make learning more hands-on and engaging, incorporating games into your curriculum is a great way to start.
Today, we will walk through one option for an in-class game, Annenberg Classroom’s That’s Your Right game. This competitive, fast-paced game can be easily incorporated into Arkansas History, Civics, and Government courses.
In-Game screen capture from That’s Your Right game.
That’s Your Right
AnnenbergClassroom.org is a project of the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan program of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, in partnership with the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. The website features free classroom resources including videos, games, lesson plans and timelines as well as a full Constitutional guide for educators and students. In the That's Your Right game, students play a digital card game to learn about the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
That's Your Right is an online game that offers a single and multiplayer version. During the game, students take turns drawing cards that describe a certain legal scenarios. Students match the scenarios to the Constitutional Amendment they are related to to earn points. Begin by having each student play through the provided game tutorial on their own. This will give them instructions for how to play and an example scenario. Then pair students together to play against one another and reflect on their game play. Students can play against multiple opponents over a single class period and the game will quickly turn into a competition of who can match amendments the fastest or earn the most points, with educational concepts being reinforced along the way.
Students can receive a certificate after successfully completing the game. (In-Game screen capture from That’s Your Right game.)
Educational Standards in this Game
That's Your Right ties to several Arkansas learning standards for social studies educators:
PD.4.C.3 Examine the amendments to the U.S. Constitution in order to determine how the roles of citizens and the federal and state governments have changed over time (e.g., Bill of Rights, incorporation of states’ rights into government, interpretation, due process, voting rights)
PD.4.C.7 Construct arguments analyzing citizens’ rights protected by the U.S. Constitution and constitutional amendments using multiple sources
SC.3.USG.4 Analyze the purposes of the Bill of Rights
IACP.8.USG.3 Analyze local and national issues addressing fundamental rights of individuals (e.g., civil liberties, due process, equal protection)
Questions to Guide Discussion
Once your students have played through the game, use the following questions to guide students through a discussion and reflection:
Which Constitutional Amendments were highlighted during your gameplay? (Random - students will have various answers.)
What kind of scenarios were you faced with? (Random - students will have various answers.)
Were you surprised by anything?
Were you confused by anything?
Have students follow up this discussion with an independent reflection or journal entry where they discuss one of the Constitutional amendments they learned about that day.
Wrapping Up
If you are looking for ways to keep students interested and engaged throughout your class period, try having them play a game and talk about the experience! That's Your Right can be played in a single class period that your students won’t forget. Don't forget to check out the full Annenberg website for all of their educational resource offerings.
