If you try this activity with your students, we’d love to see what you do. Share your journey via the #Inspired2Learn hashtag on your preferred social platform.

Discipline: Applicable in all subjects.

Age level: Grade 5-12

Time: 2 one-hour time-blocks

Materials: Copies of “Classroom Constitution Planner“, paper for writing out individual rights and responsibilities, a large sheet of chart paper for writing out the final Class Constitution, space in the room for prominently posting what the students create

Engaging students in creating a class constitution has the double benefit of co-creating a classroom community and learning about the rights and responsibilities at the core of democracy.

There are many resources online that detail different ways teachers go about this project. Some tie the learning directly to the U.S. Constitution while others speak more broadly about the rules that govern our daily behavior in order to maintain peace. We include links to a few such resources below.

Why should you create a Class Constitution? 

When students play an active role in setting expectations for their learning environment, they automatically have a bigger stake in the experience. This doesn’t mean everyone will adhere to the rights and responsibilities you’ve created together, but it does mean when there are violations of the Constitution, the conversation toward repair looks very different. The violation will not be about a student not following YOUR rules, but a student not following the rules they helped to set for themselves. Repair will focus on their behavior in relation to the classroom community, not behavior in relation to YOUR expectations. This is good practice for seeing oneself as a member of society as a whole and a contributor to or detractor from a community. When a class ratifies or signs the Constitution, they also agree to hold each other accountable for what they’ve created, putting the onus on the community as a whole and not just on you as the teacher. 

What are the hallmarks of creating a Class Constitution? 

1. Plan for individual reflection, small group discussion, and whole group discussion. You want every student to have played an active role in the creation of the Constitution. Using all three of these formats will help make that possible. 
2. Ensure the class is clear on the goal and the terminology. A Class Constitution should include rights and responsibilities. Identifying rights empowers students to think about what they need and deserve as learners. Identifying responsibilities pushes them to do the work of seeing what role they play individually and as a group in ensuring those rights aren’t violated. You will likely need to invest some time exploring what the terms rights and responsibilities mean. Give students the opportunity to frame these terms in their own words, identify examples in their life outside of school, dig into whether everyone’s definitions of these terms are the same, etc. 
3. Make space for disagreement and experimentation. A favorite Inspired Teaching story involves a teacher who let her class see what happens when “the right to speak freely whenever we want” is part of the Constitution. The students soon realized that while this right was important, it needed some boundaries. When everyone tried to speak at once, needless to say, no one was heard. Students discovered that “the right to speak freely whenever we want” infringed on “the right to learn” when unmitigated by the “responsibility to respect one another by taking turns and giving everyone a chance to speak and be heard.” 
4. State nonnegotiables up front. There are rights and responsibilities that govern what happens in a school and which cannot be violated in individual classrooms. Your students should know what these are up front. For example, if your school rule is that students may not have cell phones, make it clear that this applies in your classroom as well. There are still plenty of rights and responsibilities to co-create beyond what the school may already have in place. If students find some of these rules you cannot change objectionable – consider a future project where they learn how to advocate for changes! 
5. Once you have arrived at a Constitution the class agrees upon, ensure everyone signs it (including you!) and keep it in a public place where you can refer to it when needed. You might consider making copies for each student to have for themselves or to share with their families. 
6. Be open to amendments! Once you’ve gone through the process of co-creation with your class, there may be future circumstances that make them think about changes they’d like to make. Encourage that! This is how democracy works! 

Sample questions to consider for your class discussion: 

• What do you need as a human being in order to be well? 
• Who ensures you have what you need? 
• What do you have to do to make sure you have what you need? 
• What do you need from your school in order to learn well? 
• Who ensures you get what you need in school? 
• What do you have to do to make sure you get what you need in school? 
• What do you need in THIS CLASS in order to do well? 
• What do you need from your peers? 
• As a young person in this school, what are your rights as a learner? 
• What do you have to do in order to ensure those rights aren’t violated? 
• What should our rights be as learners in this classroom? 
• What responsibilities do we have to one another in this classroom? 
• How will we know if we’re honoring each other’s rights? 
• What should we do when we feel like a right isn’t being honored?

Sample 2-hour (1 hour each day over two days) lesson sequence: 

Day 1

1. (10 min) Opening question for the whole class: What is the US Constitution? Why does it matter to you? 
2. (10 min) Defining rights: As a whole class, discuss the term “rights.”  What does it mean? After class discussion, have students write their own definitions of the term. 
3. (10 min) With a partner, have students create a list of rights (on the reflection guide) that they should have as learners in this classroom. After students have brainstormed together for about 5 minutes, have them partner with another pair and share their lists. Ask the groups of 4 to pick two from their combined lists that they want to share with the class. Groups share out the two they have chosen. 
4. (10 min) Defining responsibilities: Using the reflection guide, as a whole class discuss the term “responsibilities” and what it means based on the definition provided. After class discussion, have students write their own definitions of the term. 
5. (20 min) Back in their groups of 4 have students choose 3 rights that they will collectively reflect upon to identify the responsibilities they must uphold in order for these rights to be honored. The back side of the reflection sheet has space for them to write these down. 

Day 2

1. (5 min) Explain to the class that the goal for today’s activity is to create an agreed-upon set of rights and responsibilities that will become the class constitution. Ask questions like: What are the benefits and drawbacks of a very long list of rights and responsibilities? Understanding that creating this list will mean combining the various smaller lists you created yesterday – what will we need to do as a group to make this work? Will the order of these rights and responsibilities be important? Do we ALL have to agree on what does and doesn’t make it onto the final list? 
2. (20 min) Give each small group from yesterday’s activity 3 sheets of blank paper. Have groups write out one right and the accompanying responsibilities per page so they have a separate page for each of the 3 rights that they reflected on in the previous class. Have each group share what they have written with the full class. Either post the pages on a wide open board or on an open space on the floor so that everyone can see all of the pages from all of the groups in one place. 
3. (15 min) Once everyone has shared, invite the group to think about how they might consolidate and organize the many rights that are now laid out in the room. Ask questions like: Are there any duplicates? Are there any that you don’t think apply to this class, why or why not? Are there any that could be combined? Let the group ponder and problem-solve as they think about how to organize them. 
4. (20 min) When the final list has been chosen and organized, have students read the Class Constitution aloud. Invite questions and observations. Have each student sign the list as a symbol of their agreement and commitment to follow this Constitution. Consider a discussion about what they can do to hold each other accountable to this list. This discussion may get into consequences when rights have been violated or responsibilities are not upheld. Consider a focus on healing and restoration of trust, rather than punishment. A question might look like this: Understanding that we all make mistakes and are not perfect, what can we do as a community to fix a break in this promise to one another when it takes place?

Class Constitution Resources 

Library of Congress: Constitution Day (September 17) 

Learning for Justice: A New Set of Rules 

Writing a School Constitution: Representative Democracy in Action (NCSS)

Discipline with Dignity: How to Build Responsibility, Relationships, and Respect in Your Classroom by Richard L. Curwin, Allen N. Mendler, and Brian D. Mendler