The experiences of women throughout history differ between regions and time periods. However, by using a historical investigation tool like comparison, we can view how women in history confronted similar challenges and common social expectations, regardless of place and time. By zooming in on the stories of women in specific societies, we can better understand the challenges women faced throughout history and continue to face in many parts of the world. You will question which groups get rights in our society, perhaps revealing who is included and excluded from our systems of government.

Contextualization, CCOT, writing
In this activity, you will examine the context in which women’s roles were defined, and how women sought to challenge the traditional power structures in different regions. Additionally, you will need to identify how women’s suffrage changed over time within the regions, why that change was possible, and how those changes inform women’s roles in society today. Finally, you’ll be writing thesis statements in response to two comparison prompts.

In this activity, you will compare and contrast women’s road to suffrage in two of the following six regions: New Zealand and Australia, Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, and Africa.

First, your teacher will either hand out or have you download the Comparison – Women’s Suffrage worksheet. With your class, review the questions that you are being asked to respond to in the Comparison Tool, included in the worksheet. This will ensure you’re focusing on the right details when reading the article.

Then, individually read “A World Tour of Women’s Suffrage.” As you read, think about the most important similarities and differences in how women achieved suffrage across all of these regions. Once everyone’s finished reading the article, your teacher will divide the class into pairs and assign each pair two regions from the article. You’ll focus on these two regions and complete Part 1: identifying and Describing of the Comparison Tool.

Once you and your partner have completed Part 1 of the tool, you’ll work together on Part 2: Analyzing to write two thesis statements in response to the following prompts:

• What is the most significant similarity when comparing how women achieved suffrage across these regions?
• What is the most significant difference when comparing how women achieved suffrage across these regions?

Remember that you can use the acronym ADE (amount, depth, and endurance) to help determine historical significance. Consider if these similarities and differences affected most people in these regions (amount); if people in these regions were deeply affected by these similarities and differences (depth); or if these similarities and differences were long lasting (endurance).

After you’re finished writing your thesis statements, join with another pair of students to form a group of four. Share and discuss your thesis statements in your new group and build upon or revise your thesis statements based on these discussions.

Then, return to your seat and (working alone) write an exit slip on the back of your worksheet answering the following question (remember to support your answer with evidence from today’s class):

• To what extent are women’s rights in the region and period you studied similar to women’s rights in your nation today?

Your teacher will collect your worksheets at the end of the activity to assess your understanding of the topic and this historical thinking practice.

Nation-states were supposedly all about expanded liberty and political participation. But the first modern nation-states universally excluded women from the right to vote. Women only achieved inclusion through activism and a struggle to change the status quo. Women gained the right to vote gradually, beginning in a few regions of the world, with local voting rights. These rights continued to spread gradually, supported by a global network of suffragists. Women’s rights to vote then sparked other reforms, to a startling degree.

Networks of reform created social change in the long nineteenth century, and beyond. These changes included expanded rights for women, and these rights in turn relied on women’s political power through the right to vote. To respond to the Unit Problem, which looks at these kinds of transformations, you therefore need to understand how and when women achieved the right to vote. This topic will also help you to evaluate the role of networks in this period, and of course the right to vote is an important theme in understanding the nation-state within the communities frame, as well.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What is suffrage, according to this article?
2. What kind of reform movement helped to stimulate the development of a women’s suffrage movement in New Zealand, and how?
3. Why did a government of men, in the United Kingdom, give women over 21 the right to vote in 1929?
4. Why was women’s suffrage so slow to be granted in India, which was also ruled by the United Kingdom (Great Britain)?
5. What groups of women were excluded from voting in North America before the 1960s?
6. What arguments did women in Latin America use to get suffrage, according to the author?
7. What important political change made universal women’s suffrage possible in most of Africa?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. This article looks at women’s suffrage by region, but we know that women’s suffrage networks stretched across borders and around the world. What trends in women’s suffrage do you see that look similar across several different regions?
2. Reflect on the last sentence of the article. How do you think achieving women’s suffrage changed political conversations and actions within nation-states?

Most societies throughout history have defined different roles for men and women. These definitions change over time. In the long nineteenth century, a new set of ideals—Victorian values—arose in Europe and spread around the world. These prescribed certain public roles for men and restricted women. But in reality, people were sometimes able to use the tools of modernity to fight back against these rules and restrictions. As a result, this period saw both a tightening of restrictive gender roles and the opening of new possibilities for freedoms.

Gender roles are more fluid, across time and place and societies, than you might think. The long nineteenth century tightened the restrictions of these roles in many places, but also shaped tools to create more freedom. Together, these are some of the transformations that will help you to respond to the Unit Problem and to understand “how all of these changes together helped to create the world we live in today”.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What were “Victorian” ideals of gender roles, according to the article? How did they spread around the world?
2. This period saw the rise of the “new women” in Europe and America. Who were “new women”?
3. What kinds of impacts did European imperialism have on women in Asia in this period, according to the author?
4. How did women in Nigeria attempt to use their traditional roles as mothers to protest British taxes and colonialism?
5. How did the rise of Marxism (socialism) create potential for change in gender roles?
6. According to the author, did nationalism create new opportunities for gender equality, or not? Explain your answer.

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. This article begins with the spread of European-inspired “Victorian” gender roles. How were these ideas expressed in new nation-states being created around the world? What does this tell us about empire as a community?
2. This article also looks at the spread of ideas like nationalism and socialism as forces that could challenge Victorian gender roles, but only to a certain degree. What does this tell us about the role of networks in spreading new ideas about gender, and their limitations?

Understanding claim testers is just the beginning! It is now time for you to support, evaluate, and refute claims. You will apply what you know about authority, logic, intuition, and evidence to write supporting statements for claims and analyze the quality of the statements put forth by your peers. In doing so, you will be gaining experience in supporting your own claims with evidence—which will promote your development as a reader, writer, and critical thinker.

Reading, writing
As readers, we need to be equipped with the tools required to be critical of the stories we hear and the narratives we accept and promote. You will practice reading for meaning while exploring the various claims—and you will engage with the claims by creating supporting statements. Next, you will analyze the supporting statements and determine the quality of such statements in collaborative conversation in small groups. Writing will be practiced in multiple parts of this activity, as you will write supporting and refuting statements in relation to the claims you were given.

In this claim-testing activity, you are given four claims about social class and gender. You are asked to work with these claims in three different ways:

1. Find supporting statements for those claims.
2. Evaluate the strength of the supporting statements provided for those claims.
3. Provide statements that refute (argue against) the claims.

Get into small table groups. Each group should have a complete set of Claim Cards in the middle of their table. Listen for your teacher’s directions for when to start.

Round 1

1. Grab one Claim Card from the center of the table.
2. On the card, write down a statement that supports the claim. You can use prior knowledge or course materials for this.
3. Pass your Claim Card to the person to your right.
4. Write down a statement that supports the claim on the card that you now have. It can’t be the same as any of the supports already written on the card.
5. Repeat the process until each group member has written a supporting statement on each card.
6. Put the Claim Cards back in the center of the table.

Round 2

1. Grab one Claim Card from the pile and stand up.
2. Find at least three other students who have the same claim as you and get into a group with them (if there are more than six people in your group, let your teacher know).
3. Look at all the supporting statements that were written for your claim. Decide which supporting statements are strongest (that is, they best support the claim).
4. Write the strongest supporting statements on the whiteboard so everyone can see them.

Round 3

1. With the same group you were in for Round 2, consider any historical exceptions to your claim. What can you offer to refute the claim?
2. Add at least one refuting statement, what we often refer to as a counterclaim, on the board so everyone can see it.
3. Write both your strongest supporting statements and the exception to the claim as an exit ticket—be sure to explain your reasoning for choosing your supporting statements and refutations. Your teacher may also have you share your statements and counterclaim with the class.

Make sure you have the UP Notebook worksheets that you partially filled out earlier in the unit.

This is a continuation of the UP Notebook activity that you started in this unit. As part of WHP, you are asked to revisit the Unit Problems in order to maintain a connection to the core themes of the course. Because this is the second time you’re working with this unit’s problems, you are asked to explain how your understanding of the unit’s core concepts has changed over the unit. Make sure you use evidence from this unit and sound reasoning in your answers.

Fill out the second table on your partially completed worksheet from earlier in the unit. Be prepared to talk about your ideas with your class.

As we continue the progression on writing, you will look at the elements of organization and language and style to ensure you have a solid grasp on each of these essentials of good writing. You will analyze another student essay to both identify and improve upon these aspects of the essay, helping to make sure you improve your historical writing skills.

It’s time for another writing activity! By now, you’re probably getting familiar with these. In this one, you’re going to examine another student essay this time against the WHP Writing Rubric criteria for organization and language and style. The essay was written in response to the Unit 3 DBQ, “Assess and compare the impact of the Industrial Revolution on Britain and India c. 1750-1914 CE.” You might recognize this if you completed the Unit 3 DBQ.

Before starting your analysis, take a look at the WHP Writing Rubric and review the Organization and Language and Style rows of the rubric with your class.

Once you’ve reviewed these criteria, your teacher will probably put you into pairs or small groups to work collaboratively on the Writing – Organization and Language and Style worksheet. First, work with your group to identify the major claim in the essay. While the thesis is not the focus of this activity, as always, it’s difficult to assess the rest of the essay without being aware of the major claim, since everything in the essay should be tied to that claim.

Next, review the essay, first paying close attention to important elements of language and style. Underline any elements of language and style that could be improved upon. Then, suggest improvements for two of the issues you’ve identified. Next, look at the organization of the essay and highlight any areas where organization could be improved. For example, if there are any missing transitions, highlight this issue as an area that could be improved upon. Next, provide suggested improvements to two of the issues you’ve found with the essay’s organization. Finally, provide a score (advanced, proficient, developing, or emerging) and comments for each of these rows of the rubric. Be prepared to share your answers with your class!

Carefully read the DBQ prompt you will be responding to. Be sure to have read and analyzed the documents prior to doing this warm-up activity.

Make sure you have drafted the thesis/major claim you intend to use in response to the essay prompt.

This warm-up focuses on the Organization row of the WHP Writing Rubric and allows you to refine the way you structure your writing to most effectively support your argument and ideas. You will practice skills to use organization strategies and transitions to support your analysis and establish clear, meaningful connections between ideas. These writing skills are essential not just to essay-writing in all your classes, but are applicable to academic, professional, and personal writing at all levels.

In this warm-up activity, you will learn how to organize your essays to help you create a paper that’s easy for your reader to understand. First, you’ll review the Organization row of the rubric, and then, you’ll work through a three-step process that will help you think about how you’ll organize your essay.

First, take out the WHP Writing Rubric and review the Organization row with your class. Discuss what you think organization is in this context and why it’s important to consider when writing essays. Remember, all arguments should have three components that make up the basic organization: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Within those components, writers make choices about the best way to order and present their ideas. Some writers use categories to structure their paragraphs (for example, economic, social, etc.) Others lay out their points in order of importance or move from most general to most specific. When we discuss organization in the context of the rubric, we’re really talking about the existence and effectiveness of the introduction and conclusion, along with the order in which ideas are presented within the body.

Additionally, a well-organized essay provides the reader with a roadmap, which should help them follow your argument more easily. So, how do you organize a paper? Well, there is a tool for that!

Take out the Organization Prewriting Tool and work through it according to your teacher’s instructions.

First, add the thesis/major claim to the top of the tool. Then, for Step 1, come up with three claims—or reasons—that support the thesis/major claim statement you just wrote. Then, for Step 2, use transition words to help you write your introduction and organize your body paragraphs.

Now you’re ready for Step 3, your conclusion. First, choose a transition word that will help you start your concluding paragraph. Then, summarize your supporting claims and their significance, describe why your argument is important, and then restate your thesis/major claim. The work you complete in Step 3 will help you write your concluding paragraph later.

Once you’ve completed the steps, it’s time to write!

DBQ Prompt: Develop an argument that analyzes the most significant impacts of industrialization on society in the long nineteenth century (c. 1750 to 1914 CE).

Have the Comparison, CCOT, and Causation tools available (find all resources on the Student Resources page)

This DBQ is another opportunity to get a sense of your progress in developing your historical thinking and writing skills. Additionally, writing DBQs will help prepare you to be successful on the written portion of standardized tests.

Day 1

It’s time for another DBQ. This time, you’ll be thinking about industrialization. The DBQ prompt is: Develop an argument that analyzes the most significant impacts of industrialization on society in the long nineteenth century (c. 1750 to 1914 CE). Start out by using the Question Parsing Tool to help you figure out what this question is really asking, so you can write an appropriate response.

Take out the DBQ and skim the documents quickly. Then, pick the thinking tool you want to use to help you analyze the documents (comparison, causation, or CCOT). Once you’ve picked a tool, read each document a bit more closely and write down or underline the information you think you might use in your essay, along with any additional sourcing you have time for. Write your ideas on your chosen tool as you work through the documents.

Next, create a major claim or thesis statement that responds to the prompt. The notes you have taken should help you form a defensible thesis statement.

Finally, it’s time to contextualize. As you likely know, all historical essays require this. If needed, you can use the Contextualization Tool to help you decide what to include.

Day 2

This second day is your writing day. Feel free to use your tools and notes from any prewriting work you completed as you craft your essay response. Make sure you have a copy of the WHP Writing Rubric available to remind you of what is important to include in your essay. And don’t forget to contextualize: Think of the entire time period, not just the time immediately preceding the historical event or process you are writing about. Your teacher will give you a time limit for completing your five- to six-paragraph essay responding to the DBQ.

In order to improve your writing skills, it is important to read examples—both good and bad—written by other people. Reviewing writing samples will help you develop and practice your own skills in order to better understand what makes for a strong essay.

Your teacher will provide sample essays for this unit’s DBQ prompt and provide instructions for how you will use them to refine your writing skills. Whether you’re working with a high-level example or improving on a not-so-great essay, we recommend having the WHP Writing Rubric on hand to help better understand how you can improve your own writing. As you work to identify and improve upon aspects of a sample essay, you’ll also be developing your own historical writing skills!

Have your graded essay ready to use for annotation and revision purposes.

When you take the opportunity to revisit and revise your writing, you are building editing skills that will serve you in all types of academic and professional writing. While the ‘revision’ stage of essay-writing is often the most dreaded (or, let’s be honest, sometimes skipped over entirely) part of the process, editing using targeted feedback is how you raise the level of your writing. This activity focuses on the Organization row of the WHP rubric and helps you identify areas of success and areas for improvement in your essays. You’ll use these fine-tuning structure and transition skills for writing in class and in life.

In this activity, you’ll first review the Organization row of the WHP Writing Rubric with your class if you haven’t already done so. Then, you’ll review the Organization Revision Tool and learn how to use it to improve upon the essay’s overall clarity and organization. Finally, you’ll use the Organization Revision Tool to review and revise an essay.

If needed, start by reviewing the Organization row of the WHP Writing Rubric with your class. Discuss why it’s important to think carefully about how an essay is structured. Also, keep in mind that a well-organized essay always has an intro, a body, and a conclusion.

Next, take out the Organization Revision Tool and walk through it with your class. First, note the directions at the top, which ask you to review the feedback from an essay. This is a helpful step because it gives you a general sense of how the essay fared in terms of overall organization and clarity and where improvement is needed.

Now, it’s time to go through each item on the checklist to make sure all criteria related to organization were included in the essay. Work through the list with your class and be sure to ask questions if you aren’t clear about what an item is asking for. Remember, only check the boxes if the criteria are met. If any criteria from the checklist were not met, leave those boxes blank. The final step is to revise the essay based on all the blank checkboxes. Use the unchecked boxes as guidance for what can be done to improve the organization of the essay. You can also use the Organization Prewriting Tool to help structure revisions.

Once you feel like you have mastered how the Organization Revision Tool works, your teacher may have you work on another essay to practice your skills.