Model UN as a class unit: a six-week lesson plan, a rubric and a letter to families

Thirty class periods end in a three-period mock session, graded with a four-level rubric.

The unit fits a class you already teach, such as history, civics, social studies or English, and needs no trip and no Model UN experience. It runs in six weeks:

1. 1Before week 2. Choose a topic and countries and write a one-page background guide.
2. 2Weeks 1 and 2. Students learn what the UN is for, take on a country and speak for it.
3. 3Weeks 3 and 4. Each student researches, writes a position paper and gives a 60-second speech.
4. 4Week 5. Blocs draft resolution paragraphs and practise amendments.
5. 5Week 6. The mock session, graded with the rubric, and a written debrief.

With three periods a week, the unit takes ten weeks. In 40-minute periods, students finish drafts at home, and the mock session runs shorter.

The six-week plan gives every period, and the letter to families tells parents what to expect. You chair from a short script.

Every student gets the same practice, and a unit is the best first step towards a conference.

A club reaches the students who volunteer. A class unit gives every student the same practice in research, writing an argument, speaking and negotiating, with almost no budget.

Students gain most when they prepare in class. In one study of a mock Security Council, groups that prepared longer, with a course behind them, gained more than students who prepared alone. So spend most of the unit on preparation, and end with a debrief.

A unit is also the best first step towards a conference. Students who have done it arrive knowing the rules, and many want more: taking students to a conference shows the next step.

Share each week's objectives with the class as the week starts, and match them to your curriculum before the unit begins.

• Week 1. I can explain what the UN is for and how its members vote in the General Assembly. I can speak for a role whose view is not my own.
• Week 2. I can introduce my country and explain why our topic matters to it.
• Week 3. I can find my country's position in at least two sources, and cite them.
• Week 4. I can write a position paper that gives my country's position, a solution and a source for every fact. I can give a 60-second speech with a position, a fact and a proposal.
• Week 5. I can work with other countries to write an operative paragraph of a resolution, and to change one with an amendment.
• Week 6. I can follow the committee's rules, stay in role and contribute in speech or in writing. I can explain what I learned and what I would change next time.

You choose the topic and the countries and write a one-page background guide, all before week 2.

• The topic. Choose one that your students can research at their reading level, and on which countries disagree for reasons they can explain.
• A ready-made topic. The UN's free Model UN toolkit covers marine plastic litter, with a suggested list of about 30 countries from all five UN regional groups. The toolkit's own simulation aims for consensus, but you can debate its topic with the procedure you teach.
• The countries. Give one to each student, or one to each pair in a class of more than 30. Mix regions and income levels, with countries on each side of the topic.
• The background guide. On one page, set out the problem, three key terms and what the UN has done. Add two or three questions a resolution should answer, and four or five sources.
• Sources. Collect country profiles at your students' reading level, or ask your school librarian.
• The procedure. The plan uses North American procedure; if your students will attend THIMUN-style conferences, set the session plans to THIMUN-style. Periods 5 and 26 take session 3's points and amendments, period 21 the THIMUN chair script, and period 27 session 7's lobbying and merging.
• Devices. Book the library or devices for periods 8, 11 and 12. From period 23, give each bloc at least one device for its live document.
• The sample paper. If you use the toolkit's topic, keep Kenya off your country list, so no student can copy the sample. With another topic, write a sample for a country no student has.

Two weeks on the UN and roles, two on research, paper and speech, one on drafting and one for the mock session.

Three paragraphs for Kenya on marine plastic litter: its position, what it has done and what it proposes.

This paper reaches level 4 on the writing row: a clear position, solutions that say how they would work, and a source for every fact. Paragraph 3 needs no source, because its solutions are the writer's own.

Three periods in a fixed order, with a large class seated in pairs or two committees.

You chair the mock session from the chair script, using only roll call, the speakers' list, caucuses, amendments and the vote.

• Period 26. Three minutes of roll call, then a 30-second opening speech from each delegation, about 20 minutes, since students gave their full speech in week 4. Use the rest for a 10-minute moderated caucus on the hardest question in your background guide.
• Period 27. In two 15-minute unmoderated caucuses, blocs with similar drafts merge them, aiming for one or two. You check in with each group between the caucuses, and each draft's sponsors present it in two minutes.
• Period 28. About 5 minutes to introduce the drafts, 25 minutes of debate with one amendment on each, and the last 10 for the votes.
• In 40-minute periods. Drop the moderated caucus in period 26, run one 20-minute unmoderated caucus in period 27, and keep the debate in period 28 to 20 minutes.
• Pairs or two committees. Give each pair one country, and let one partner open while the other speaks later. Or run two committees in the two halves of your room, as in large groups, with a confident student chairing the second.
• The vote. Before period 26, tell students how a draft passes, for example by a simple majority.
• Your notes. In each committee, a student timekeeper keeps a list of who has spoken. After each period, note each student's negotiation and participation levels from that list and the named paragraphs.

Running the mock session in MUN Command

Run the mock in MUN Command, the best tool for chairing a committee, and one that many conferences use. Anyone can set up a committee for a class, and students join from a school laptop, or a phone where allowed. It makes the mock easier to run and to grade:

• Debate. A live speakers' list and timers, motions in a queue, and roll call and votes in one tap.
• Drafts. Blocs write together in a live document editor, with no Google Docs or shared folders. Its version history shows who changed what.
• Notes. Committee chat replaces paper notes between delegates.
• Evidence for the rubric. Statistics and the full history of the debate show who spoke, when and in which caucus, in each committee you set up. As chair, you can rate and comment on each speech.

Grading the debate makes students prepare but can punish nerves, so the rubric grades the effect of each contribution.

Teachers disagree about grading the debate itself:

• For. Speaking and negotiating are skills the curriculum asks for, and a grade makes students prepare.
• Against. Shy students and second-language speakers lose marks for nerves, not for thinking, and counting speeches rewards the loudest. While you chair, you also see only part of what 30 students do.
• In between. Grade the effect of each contribution, and let a written paragraph or amendment count as fully as a speech.

The rubric below takes the middle way, and support shows how to give a quiet student a fair chance.

Five rows, one for each piece of work, each scored from 1 (not yet) to 4 (exceeds).

The speaking row grades ideas and the answer, not reading, grammar or accent, so a student with a full script can reach level 4.

Give each piece of work its own grade, convert the rubric's levels with your school's scale, and grade every student on their own work.

• Small and large pieces. If your school splits grades into small and large pieces, the position paper and the mock session are the large ones. The mock's grade is the average of its two rows.
• Levels, not percentages. Level 3 meets the standard, but 3 out of 4 reads as 75%. Convert the levels with your school's scale, or decide what each is worth before period 9 and tell students.
• Each student's own grade. With pairs, each partner writes their own fact sheet and paper and gives their own speech. Grade a bloc's draft through each student's own paragraph, never as one grade for the bloc.
• Late work. Follow your school's policy, and record missing work as missing, not as level 1. A student late with the fact sheet still plans the paper in period 14.
• Own work. Set your rule on AI before research starts in period 11. If a paper looks copied or written by AI, compare it with the draft from period 15, and ask the student to explain it.
• Several classes. Use the same topic and countries in every class, so you prepare once. Grade each paper against its row with one strength and one change, instead of correcting every line.

Model UN in class: what students do, how the work is graded and how families can help.

Send it through your school's usual channel in week 2, after students see the rubric in period 9. Translate it where families read another language.

Follow each student's support plan, give quiet students a written way to take part, and offer a harder role to students who want one.

• Support plans. Follow each student's support plan, such as an IEP or 504 plan. It may give extra time, a full script for the speech or a smaller audience.
• Students who will not speak to the room. Let them give the speech to you or to a small group, graded like any other. In the mock session, they take part through written paragraphs and amendments.
• Quiet students and second-language speakers. Supporting every student has sentence starters and tips for both.
• Late joiners. Pair a student who joins in week 3 or later with a classmate whose country has a clear position, as a double delegation. Start them on the fact sheet.
• Students who want more. Offer them a harder country, or the chair's seat in a second committee. Grade a student chair's participation on how they run the debate.