Georgia SS4CG1

SS4CG1 is a Georgia social studies standard. These are the elements under it.

• SS4CG1.c

  The federal system of government in the U.S. (federal powers, state powers, and shared powers)

01

What Students Need to Do

Students explain life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as rights people are born with. They explain that government gets authority from the people. They distinguish federal, state, and shared powers, and explain how elected representatives make decisions for citizens.

02

What Mastery Looks Like

Students can match civic ideas to clear examples and explain each match. They can compare direct citizen control with representative government and correctly classify government powers.

03

Common Misconceptions

Students may treat natural rights as rewards that government can freely remove. They may think the federal government controls every issue or that federal and state powers never overlap. Some confuse representative government with every citizen voting on every law.

04

How to Assess It

Give students four examples: free speech, electing a mayor, printing money, and building highways. Ask them to name the civic idea shown and explain one answer.

1. 01

   Give groups labeled mats and example cards to sort into natural rights, people’s authority, federalism, and representative government.

2. 02

   Ask students to write: How do citizens give government permission to act, and how can they withdraw that permission?

3. 03

   Play a power sorting relay using cards such as coin money, issue licenses, collect taxes, and run elections.

4. 04

   Use a local election ballot to identify representatives, offices, and decisions made at city, state, and federal levels.

• L6-8RHSS4

  Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.

• L6-8RHSS5

  Describe how a text presents information (e.g., sequentially, comparatively, causally).

• L6-8WHST2.d

  Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.

• L6-8RHSS6

  Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author’s point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts).