All About the Pledge of Allegiance

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Explain to your students that the pledge is important and that they are going to look at the words closely to understand what it means.
• Read I Pledge Allegiance by Pat Mora & Libby Martinez to your students.
• Stop at various points of the book to discuss key details.
• At the end of the story, discuss and recount the central message of the story. Potential guiding questions include: What does the Pledge of Allegiance mean to Lobo?
• Display the Pledge of Allegiance script, and have your students recite it with you.
• Raise a discussion on the pledge. A great discussion question is: What words do you see here that you think are important?
• Ask students for input on what they think the words mean.
• Write the definitions in the space between the text. Use the words in a sentence, and provide context to scaffold learning if necessary.

Guided Practice

• Explain to your students that they now have a better understanding of what the Pledge of Allegiance is saying.
• Tell your students that it can represent different things to different people, explaining that the Pledge of Allegiance meant security and safety to Lobo because the United States was a place that made her feel warm, as if she was wrapped in a blanket.
• Have your students think of one or two things that the Pledge of Allegiance means to them and write it on a sticky note.
• Instruct them to put their notes on the board.
• Review the words on the board and pull out common themes to discuss.
• Discuss how important it is to help each other and make promises.

Independent working time

• Instruct your students to create their own booklets to help them remember what the Pledge of Allegiance means to them.
• Pass out the Pledge of Allegiance booklets.
• For each underlined word, have your students write a word or sentence and draw a picture that represents what that word means. Instruct your students to draw the picture on the right side of the booklet.