Grades 6-8

The Declaration of Independence: the full text

Social studies & civics

The complete text of the Declaration of Independence, with an original glossary of its harder words and phrases.

Aligned to C3

Public domain: First published in 1776; long in the public domain in the United States.

The lesson plan

Learning objectives

Students will read the Declaration of Independence with the glossary to work through its harder words and phrases.
Students will identify the document’s basic structure: its opening statement, its list of grievances, and its closing.
Students will restate one grievance in plain, present-day language.

Suggested sequence

Pre-teach: Preview a handful of glossary terms before reading so the vocabulary does not block comprehension.
Guided reading: Read the opening statement together, pausing at glossary terms.
Independent or paired reading: Students work through the list of grievances with the glossary at hand.
Discussion: Students share the grievance they restated and why they chose it.

Discussion prompts

Why might the document list specific grievances instead of a single general complaint?
Which glossary term changed your understanding of a sentence the most, and why?

Checking for understanding

Use the restated grievance as a formative check: a student who can put one grievance into their own words, correctly, has met the lesson’s objective.

Back to the curriculum

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We publish only our own original work or works we have verified are in the public domain. Standards alignment means we wrote each lesson against a published framework — not that any standards body has reviewed, approved, or endorsed it.