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Lesson

Rights and Responsibilities

Guiding question

What is a right?

Grade
9–12
Published
Nov 5, 2020
A stack of rolled newspapers on a surface, captured in black and white.
In order to enjoy our tradition of rights in the United States, we must also fulfill responsibilities to assure that all can benefit from the liberty and equality on which the United States was founded. Many of the rights we can exercise have concrete responsibilities of actions we must take to assure the common good. This lesson will examine the differences between rights and responsibilities, and how both relate to the concept of the common good.

Founding Principles

Natural/Inalienable Rights

Guiding Questions

  • What is a right?
  • What is a responsibility?
  • What responsibilities are natural byproducts of the rights we enjoy?
  • How does exercising our rights and fulfilling our responsibilities help to promote the common good for all?

Objectives

  • Students will differentiate rights from responsibilities.
  • Students will analyze the relationship between rights and responsibilities.
  • Students will explain how rights and responsibilities are related to the common good.

Materials

Educator Resources

Student Handouts

Lesson Components

ActivityHandout A: How Does the Constitution Protect Liberty?
ActivityHandout B: Excerpts from Federalist No 10, 51, 55, and 57
EssayEssay: Rights and Responsibilities

What many today might call “rights,” such as federally-guaranteed social security payments, disability payments, food stamps, education, a minimum wage, and health care, the Founders would not have seen as rights. Even today, these benefits are more rightly called “entitlements.” This difference does not mean that entitlements are better or worse, but calling them “rights” can be dangerous. In addition to the shift from rights to entitlements, another evolution in the tradition of rights has to do with individual responsibility. Part of living in a society with self-government on a societal level is self-government on an individual level.

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Lesson plan

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Key Terms

rights
responsibilities
common good

Standards

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Related materials

The Constitution primary source
Primary SourceThe Constitution

The Constitution was written in the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by delegates from 12 states, in order to replace the Articles of Confederation with a new form of government. It created a federal system with a national government composed of 3 separated powers, and included both reserved and concurrent powers of states.