Before you begin to dig into the causes, consequences, and longer-term impacts of revolutions, it’s helpful to first under what a revolution actually is, and how this relates to the political and social transformations that often occur as a result of these upheavals. To do this, you’ll think about the differences between revolution and evolution to see how they are related, and how they are different. As you do this, you’ll learn about a lot of different historical revolutions.

In this activity, you’re going to really dig into what revolution means, and how revolutions and evolutions are similar, yet different.

First, brainstorm as many words as you can that relate to the word revolution. Your teacher will record these on the board as you brainstorm.

Next, brainstorm as many words as you can that relate to the word evolution. Your teacher will record these on the board as well.

Now, compare the two lists. Are there any synonyms shared by the two lists? Your teacher may have you come up to the board and circle the words on each list that are similar. Then, have a discussion about the similarities you see. Why do you think some of the words have similar meanings even though the words they started with are different? What about the differences? What makes an evolution different from a revolution?

Sovereignty, or the idea that a person or nation should govern itself, sounds pretty obvious, but it was a revolutionary idea during Era 6. It completely changed how people thought of their governments and their roles in them—but it didn’t affect everyone equally. In fact, only a small group of people really experienced the ideal of sovereignty. People continued to be enslaved, and workers, women, and children didn’t get to govern themselves very much at all. Still, the idea that sparked revolutions had a major impact.

In this article, you’ll learn what sovereignty is in theory how it played out in practice. This will help you understand later videos and articles on enlightenment, revolution, nationalism, revolutionary women, women’s rights, and child labor. This article will also really help you think about the Era 6 Problem, because it highlights an idea that many say was an engine of change that created the modern world. But it also highlights that this very idea—which feels very old and natural now—was actually new. Understanding this is key to understanding why it was so revolutionary during this period.

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 sovereignty? How did it affect how people thought about their governments?
2. What were some of the limitations of the idea of sovereignty?
3. What does the American Three-Fifths Compromise tell us about sovereignty?
4. How did ideas about sovereignty affect the lives of some children?
5. How did ideas about motherhood change as a result of ideas about sovereignty becoming influential?

Evaluating and Corroborating

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

1. In what ways might the idea of sovereignty impact the way that a political community works?

Global interconnections and a widening world in the sixteenth century set the stage for even more intellectual growth. The Scientific Revolution brought new concepts, understandings of the universe, and even new evidence and methods for arriving at conclusions. Thinkers started looking for laws and simple principles using tools like mathematics. This in turn led them to think about their communities, asking radical questions about rights and what government should be. These kinds of discussions kicked off political movements and even impacted industrialization and imperialism, making these intellectual movements important factors in the making of the modern world.

This video will set up the context for articles, videos, and activities in this unit about the Enlightenment, revolution, industrialization, and imperialism. These are all major movements, which you’ll need to understand in order to respond to the Era 6 Problem: What were the engines of change that created our “modern” world? And these major movements all have links to one another, which this video will help you begin to understand.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video:

1. What changed about how people reached conclusions as a result of the Scientific Revolution?
2. What was the significance of Newton’s publication?
3. What did the Scientific Revolution have to do with political revolutions?
4. What’s the link between industrialization and imperialism, according to author?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. The author argues that political revolutions were inspired by ideas from the Scientific Revolution. How can ideas about the universe turn into ideas about political organization?
2. Predict which trends you learned about in this video will continue to have an impact on later history. Use sources from earlier in this lesson to support your prediction.

Between 1775 and 1825, people around the Atlantic world revolted against the powers that ruled them. They were inspired by concepts like equality, reason, and freedom. When the authorities imposed too much in the way of taxes, and when poverty or labor conditions were too terrible, people started to resist their governments and call for freedom. Every revolution had its own style, causes, and outcomes, but what they had in common was a strong desire for people to have a say in who governed them and to make better lives for themselves.

You’ve already encountered Enlightenment ideas like sovereignty. In this article, you’ll see how powerful ideas about sovereignty and freedom combined with economic factors to spark revolutionary movements across the Atlantic. You’ll be able to see how these new Enlightenment ideals were applied in different regions. You’ll learn more about the Enlightenment, revolution, and nationalism in this lesson, as we take a closer look at how intellectual trends shaped communities across the globe. As you learn about this, you’ll be able to compare across regions. You can then tackle the Era 6 Problem with a clearer understanding of how revolutionary ideas were engines of change shared origins but that had pretty wide-ranging and diverse effects.

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 was the Stamp Act and how did British North American colonists react to it?
2. How did the lives of French people in the lower and middle classes change during the eighteenth century? How did these changes affect their attitudes about the government?
3. What was unique about Haiti’s independence?
4. What were the causes of the Latin American revolutions, according to the author?

Evaluating and Corroborating

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

1. How does evidence from this article help you support, extend, or challenge the communities frame narrative?
2. Revolutionary movements had many different causes, as you learned in this article. In your view, based on this article and other material in this lesson, make and defend a claim in response to the following questions: Do you think Enlightenment ideals or economic factors played a bigger role in sparking revolutions? Do you think the answer is the same everywhere, or does this vary by region?

The Enlightenment had pretty lofty goals, but it didn’t always live up to them. It enlightened some things more than others. It contributed to important movements, like the abolition of slavery and women’s rights, but change was often slow. Enlightenment thinkers championed the idea of progress, and their philosophies helped lay the foundation for things like modern states, property rights, and capitalism—which had very different effects on different groups of people.

In this article, you’ll build on what you learned about sovereignty, the Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution and learn more about the Enlightenment specifically. This understanding will be crucial as you learn about revolution and nationalism, industrialization, imperialism, and labor. The Enlightenment had some major impacts, and understanding it better will equip you to think through the Era 6 Problem: What were the engines of change that created our “modern” world?

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. How did the Dutch and British influence Enlightenment thought?
2. What opinion did Enlightenment thinkers have about slavery?
3. What views did Enlightenment thinkers have about progress? How did that affect their views of different societies?
4. How did Enlightenment thought impact production and distribution?
5. How did the Enlightenment help or hurt working-class people?

Evaluating and Corroborating

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

1. So, was the Enlightenment revolutionary? What does the author think? What do you think?
2. How might the idea of “progress” have been used to motivate or justify colonial expansion? Use evidence from other articles and videos in this era to support your claim.

The Enlightenment can be a difficult movement to fully understand. By analyzing a set of quotes from authors who were either inspirations for, or products of, the Enlightenment, you’ll learn more about their perspectives, which will help you understand the viewpoints of people who lived during that time. Quote analysis is an important analytical skill, and will help you see how different types of evidence can help us better understand the past. In this case, the analysis will help you understand how this movement inspired the revolutionary period that followed. In addition, you’ll connect these quotes to current events to evaluate how these ideas still influence society today.

In this activity, you’ll work together to analyze a set of quotes from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century authors to determine how each quote is both symbolic of the Enlightenment, and an indication of the Enlightenment’s impact today. These quotes were written hundreds of years ago using language and style different from how most people write and speak today. Because of this, these quotes can sometimes be difficult to interpret. This activity offers an everyday-language interpretation to help you fully understand the meaning of each quote.

First, your teacher will either hand out or have you download the Enlightenment Quotes worksheet. As a class, you’ll review the differences between one original quote and one everyday-language translation. These everyday-language interpretations should not be taken as the only way to understand them. In fact, many of the “original” quotes are themselves translated from other languages. When doing this type of analysis, it’s important to keep in mind which lenses of interpretation have been applied when deciding what something means. Could there be other ways to “translate” the quotes that might lead to a slightly different understanding?

Then, your teacher will break the class into groups of three or four. Each group will be responsible for two or three of the quotes on the worksheet. With your group, read your assigned quotes and answer the questions posed at the end of the worksheet for each quote. Make sure to read your quotes carefully and look up any words you don’t know.

The period from 1775 to 1825 was a time of revolutions in Europe and the Americas, but not all revolutions are created equal. Some revolutionaries were elite colonists, while others were enslaved laborers. Whether motivated by high taxes or anger at being excluded from politics, revolutionaries fought for both political rights and a better quality of life. They succeeded in creating new nations and governments, but often with very different outcomes across and within societies.

In this article, you’ll see how ideas about sovereignty played out in several different communities across the Atlantic Ocean. This article will give you information you’ll need to tackle the Era 6 Problem—What were the engines of change that created our “modern” world?—from the perspective of changes in the ways these communities were governed. Because you’ll switch places and scales as you read, you’ll be able to compare the causes and outcomes of these revolutions.

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 first sparked the American Revolution?
2. What was the Third Estate?
3. What did the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man have in common? How did they differ?
4. How did the French Revolution impact Saint Domingue? What were some other sources of the Haitian revolution?
5. What classes took power in South America, and how was this different from the class that took power in Saint Domingue?

Evaluating and Corroborating

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

1. How did Enlightenment ideas, including ideas about sovereignty, contribute to the Atlantic Revolutions? Do you think it’s fair to say that those ideas caused these revolutions? Use evidence from this article and other material in this lesson to defend your claim.
2. Make a prediction: How important were the “Atlantic Revolutions” in creating the modern world?

In the late eighteenth century, the French colony of Saint Domingue teetered on an unstable social pyramid. At the top of the hierarchy were wealthy white plantation owners who enslaved the vast majority of the island’s population: hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans and their descendants. New ideas about natural rights swirled around the Atlantic world and reached the people of Saint Domingue—including enslaved people—and helped launch the most radical of the Atlantic revolutions. But the fight didn’t end with independence, as the new nation of Haiti continued to struggle for its survival and the end of slavery.

This video will provide you with evidence to evaluate the revolutions of the long nineteenth century through the lens of history’s most successful slave revolt. It will also help you support, extend, and challenge all three frame narratives. The Haitian Revolution challenged ideas about who had rights. It was made possible by networks of free and enslaved people who exchanged information around the Atlantic world. And it defied the plantation system that was the foundation of global production and distribution during the long nineteenth century.

Preview—Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas—Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video.

1. Who made up the social classes in Saint Domingue, and why was this social pyramid unstable?
2. According to Dr. Daut, what was life like for an enslaved person in Saint Domingue?
3. According to the Dr. Daut, what was the goal of the revolutionaries in the revolution’s early days?
4. Who was Toussaint Louverture, and why did he fight first with the Spanish and then with the French?
5. How did enslaved people learn about revolutionary ideas?
6. This video makes the argument that Haiti’s struggle continued long after the revolution and independence. What evidence is provided to support this point?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. This video makes the argument that the Haitian Revolution was the most radical of the Atlantic revolutions. Do you agree? What evidence from the video supports your view?

We often learn about the US War of Independence, the French Revolution, and revolutions in Haiti and Latin America as a set of “Atlantic revolutions” that share some characteristics and were connected to each other by shared ideas and trade networks. But West Africa was also part of this increasingly linked Atlantic world. Were West African revolutions part of this Atlantic “Age of Revolutions”? Did these conflicts share causes and impacts with those across the ocean? This article argues that to some degree, they did. You will have to decide whether you agree or not.

As you study the revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, you may see some patterns. For example, historians see revolutions in different parts of the Atlantic as being linked by shared ideas but also as reactions to economic inequality. West Africa is often left out of these discussions. By looking at new research on revolutions in West Africa, you can get a sense of how political events in this region had both similarities and, in some cases, differences to other parts of the Atlantic world. This will help you understand the broader pattern of the revolutions you are studying.

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. When did ‘Uthman dan Fodio’s revolution take place in northern Nigeria? What other revolutions in the Atlantic world were taking place right around this time?
2. What economic factors led to revolutions like ‘Uthman Dan Fodio’s in West Africa, according to the article? Were these factors similar or different from other parts of the Atlantic?
3. What was the ideology or unifying force for revolution in West Africa, according to the article, and why?
4. What revolutionary state did ‘Uthman dan Fodio create? How revolutionary was this state, and other new Islamic states, according to the article?

Evaluating and Corroborating

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

1. Why do you think the history of West Africa has generally been left out of the study of revolutions in the Atlantic in this period?
2. Would you include ‘Uthman dan Fodio and the Islamic revolutions of West Africa as one of the “Atlantic revolutions”? In what ways was it linked or similar to other revolutions in this period, and in what ways was it unique or unconnected?

We’re used to hearing about revolutions in the US, France, Latin America, and Haiti. Less frequently do we hear about the role of Indigenous Americans in this revolutionary history. The first large-scale, successful revolt against colonizers in the United States was launched in 1680 by the Pueblo people of New Mexico. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 temporarily drove out the Spanish and helped ensure the endurance of Pueblo culture and communities into the present. In this video, Jerad Koepp interviews Porter Swentzell about the causes, experiences, and long-term effects of the revolt.

This video provides you with evidence to evaluate the Age of Revolutions through the lens of an earlier, lesser-known revolt. It will help you extend the narratives about revolution and colonization that you’re encountering by including a successful Indigenous revolution. It will also help you understand how Indigenous peoples around the world took part in making—and contesting—the modern world.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Remember to open and skim the transcript, and then read the questions below before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Factual

Think about the following questions as you watch this video.

1. How does Dr. Swentzell describe the Pueblos of New Mexico before Spanish arrival?
2. Why did the Spanish decide to invade New Mexico and what were some of the immediate consequences of the decision?
3. What are some examples that Dr. Swentzell provides about how Pueblo people experienced colonization?
4. What are some of the ways that Pueblo people resisted Spanish colonization before 1680?
5. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was about many different issues, but it was sparked by one big event. What were the main grievances, and what was the big event?
6. How did the Pueblos coordinate the revolt? Was it successful?
7. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is sometimes called the first and most successful revolt against European colonialism. Does Dr. Swentzell agree? What evidence does he mention to support or challenge this idea?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. This video makes the argument that the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 should be included in the stories about the Age of Revolutions—including the American, French, Latin American, and Haitian Revolutions. Can you think of any evidence you’ve learned in this course that challenges that claim?

In this activity, you’ll create a recipe that explains the causes for a particular political revolution. Since revolutions are often messy (and bloody!), analyzing the causes and categorizing them will allow you to expand your understanding of how causation helps to explain historical processes and how historians focus on particular causes to shape people’s understanding of these events.

Comparison
You will further develop your causation skills by comparing different revolutions. By evaluating the similarities and differences between revolutions, you will be able to understand causal relationships more fully, in particular as they relate to the causes of revolutions across different temporal and spatial settings.

For this activity, you’ll be creating a recipe to “cook up” a political revolution. First, you’ll be assigned one of the revolutions you’ve already read about in this era. Then, you’ll create a recipe that consists of causes—your list of “ingredients”—for your revolution. You’ll also include detailed directions about how to combine all the ingredients in your recipe. These directions will actually be an account of how the causes led to a revolution.

Part 1: Categorizing Causes

Your teacher will break the class into groups of three to four students and assign each group one of the following political revolutions: American, French, or Latin American. Then your teacher will either hand out or have you download the Causation – Recipe for a Revolution worksheet, which includes the Causation Tool. Review the articles “Ingredients for Revolution” and “The Atlantic Revolutions” and take notes on the causes of your assigned revolution. You might need to conduct additional research to find enough causes. If you do conduct outside research, make sure someone in your group keeps a list of where you found your information/sources. As you research, be sure to include the appropriate evidence (that is, the “good” evidence) for the causes for your revolution. These might include dates, key terms, and names that relate to the revolution. After your group has identified all of the causes, complete the Causation Tool.

Part 2: Creating the Recipe

Use your causes from the Causation Tool to create your recipe for revolution. Here are the steps you’ll have to follow:

1. Write the list of “ingredients” (the causes of the revolution). Note: You should have eight to ten causes in your list of ingredients.
2. Next, rank your causes from most essential to least essential, with 1 being the most essential. This will be your ingredient list for the recipe. Then, explain how your top three ingredients compare with the bottom three. Ranking the causes will help you understand the relative significance of each cause.
3. Create “directions” (that is, preparation steps). This can be accomplished by answering the following question: How does each cause come together (or get “mixed”) to create revolution? Think about the verbs you might see in a recipe such as mix, blend, stir, chop, and sprinkle. There are lots of other examples—use your imagination!
   • The event that triggered the revolution
   • Timeframe/periodization
   • Historical context

Part 3: Comparing Causes

Once all groups are finished, you’ll share your recipe with the class. Then, your group will learn about the causes of a different revolution from one other group. You’ll then work on your own to write a two- to three-paragraph response about how the causes of the other group’s revolution were similar to and different from the one on which you wrote your recipe.

Your teacher will collect your worksheets and paragraphs and use them to assess how your causation skills are progressing.

Nationalism hasn’t been around forever. Even though people say nations are older than time, they really began to appear at a very specific point in time, about two centuries ago. Nations aren’t biological or natural. Nations are communities that people imagine and build, around shared languages, cultures, histories, governments, and goals. They came about for many different reasons, from military victories to reading lots of new print materials to the decrease in trust in religion, but they didn’t come about everywhere or in the same way—or at all for some time.

In this article you’ll take a closer look at evidence for how ideas of sovereignty and the Enlightenment helped to create the modern experience of nationalism. Nationalism was a game-changed during this era, so understanding it and being able to compare across regions will help you answer the Era 6 Problem: What were the engines of change that created our “modern” world? You’ll also get an idea about how to put nations—past and present—into context and analyze their claims about themselves.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming 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 a nation? Are nations natural or biological?
2. Why does the author describe nations as an “imagined communities”?
3. How did French military victories contribute to the rise of nationalism in France and elsewhere?
4. In what context did nationalism take hold in Europe? In the Americas?
5. What factors helped nationalism take hold in Germany and Italy?

Evaluating and Corroborating

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

1. What is the author’s main argument about nationalism? Do you find it convincing? Why or why not?
2. What are some of the ways in which nationalism helped liberate people or bring about positive political change in this era? Can you predict any potential problems or challenges that nationalism might also bring? If so, what are they?

Nationalism is the most impactful ideology in modern history. It is a cultural and political concept that argues that nations exist and have a right to govern themselves. That might not seem controversial, but it has been an incredibly disruptive force over the last 200 years. From the Atlantic Revolutions, the concept of nationalism spread around the world, sometimes liberating people from empires, and sometimes warping into new, destructive ideologies like fascism. Nationalists make historical claims that help them achieve their political goals. It’s time for you to test those claims. Is nationalism good or bad?

This video is intended to introduce you to a concept you’re going to hear a lot about for the rest of the course: nationalism. The video defines the ideology of nationalism, provides an overview of where it got started and how it spread, and concludes by providing some evidence to help you evaluate nationalism as an ideology. It will provide you with evidence to evaluate the communities frame narrative. It will also help you better understand the revolutions of the long nineteenth century and the remarkable violence of the twentieth century.

Preview—Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas—Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video.

1. How does this video define nationalism?
2. What did Benedict Anderson mean when he called the nation an “imagined political community”?
3. According to the video, where did nationalism begin and how did it spread?
4. How did nationalism contribute to the extreme violence of the twentieth century?
5. How do nationalists construct ideas about their nation?
6. What is some evidence referenced in this video as to whether nationalism is good or bad?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. The opening quote of this video is by the American novelist Kurt Vonnegut. In the quote, Vonnegut warns that “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Why do you think this quote was included in this video?
2. This video is pretty clear about nationalism’s impacts on communities. What are some ways that nationalism affected networks and production and distribution?

A nation-state is supposedly made up of people who share a common government, language, and culture and live in the same place—but it’s not really that simple, and not all nation-states follow these rules. This video gives you an overview of how nation-states form. It takes a deep-dive into the formation of the modern Japanese nation-state, helping you see how things like an army, public school, money, and even railroads lead to the political form we have to this day—for better or for worse.

Earlier in this lesson, you learned about new ideas about sovereignty, the nation, and nation-states. The video touches on a few examples of these things, but you’ll specifically get a close look at the rise of the nation-state in Japan. This will prepare you to think about other things in the course, like imperialism, war, and nationalism in Era 7. It’ll also help you think about the Era 6 Problem, since nationalism is definitely an important “engine of change” in the creation of our modern world.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video:

1. What is a nation-state?
2. What are three different theories about how nations are formed?
3. What are some process involved in making a nation?
4. What is one way in which the rise of nationalism affected empires?
5. What was Japanese government like before and the arrival of the Americans? What role did Americans like Matthew Perry play in that transformation?
6. What features made the Japanese government a modern nation-state? What were some things the Japanese did to build this nation-state?
7. How can the rise of nation-states sometimes lead to conflict? Give an example from the Japanese context.

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. What features do all nation-states seem to share in common? Why do you think these features are so central to the nation-state?
2. Do you agree with the author’s argument that nation-states tend to cause conflict with other groups or prevent others from becoming nation-states? Support your answer using evidence from other sources in this unit.

3x5 note cards or cut up paper

This sourcing collection, along with the Quick-Sourcing Tool, gives you an opportunity to practice a quicker kind of sourcing than you do in the sourcing practice progression. The tool and the process for using it—specifically designed for unpacking document collections—will help you be successful when responding to DBQs.

Note: If you are unfamiliar with the Quick-Sourcing Tool or the process for using it, we recommend reviewing the Quick-Sourcing Introduction activity in Lesson 5.1.

The Quick-Sourcing Tool can be used any time you encounter a set of sources and are trying to respond to a prompt or question, as opposed to the deeper analysis you do when using the HAPPY tool that is part of the sourcing progression.

First, take out or download the sourcing collection and review the guiding question that appears on the first page. Then, take out or download the Quick-Sourcing Tool and review the directions. For Part 1, you’ll write a quick summary of each source in terms of how it relates to the guiding question (we recommend using one note card or scrap of paper for each source).

For Part 2, which uses the first four letters of the acronym from the HAPPY tool, you only have to respond to one of these four questions. You should always include the historical significance or “why” (the “Y” in “HAPPY”) for any of the four questions you choose to respond to.

In Part 3, you’ll gather the evidence you found in each document and add it to your note cards so you can include it in a response later. Once each document is analyzed, look at your note cards and try to categorize the cards. There might be a group of documents that support the claim you want to make in your response, and another group that will help you consider counterclaims, for example.

To wrap up, try to respond to the guiding question.

This collection explores changing belief systems, from the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation to devotional movements like Sufism and the Bhakti movement. It also looks at the political dimensions of religion, from Christian Europe to the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Courts, all of which were entangled in sectarian struggles.

The primary source excerpts in this collection will help you assess how the revolutionary changes of the long nineteenth century impacted communities and networks. In turn, this will help you understand how ideas like popular sovereignty and nationalism continue to influence our world today. In addition, you’ll work on your sourcing skills using the Quick-Sourcing Tool.

We recommend using the accompanying Quick Sourcing activity (above) to help you analyze these sources.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, all kinds of women became active in the fight for change. While these fights for rights may not seem particularly revolutionary today, and while not all of these women are famous or well known, these women were agents of change in history, helping to push the boundaries of what was “normal” at the time. In this activity, you will engage in an in-depth study of one revolutionary woman to illuminate just how “revolutionary” this person was, and how her impact is still felt and seen in women’s lives around the world today. You will create an influence campaign to show others how this woman’s history is still usable and important in today’s world.

CCOT
You will have to determine how the changes spurred by revolutionary women still impact lives today. In doing this, you will have to look at how those changes have persisted.

In this activity, you will research one revolutionary woman from history, with the goal of creating a mini-influencer campaign in order to show that your woman was the most revolutionary. Your teacher will start by reading the following passage to you – feel free to read along!

The eighteenth century marked a significant turning point for much of the world. It was an era of tremendous change, as people developed new ways to examine human nature using science, and at times called for radical political revolutions. It was the period of time in which intellectuals discussed creating a social contract between the people and the government. These new republican governments required the consent of the people because in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “all men are created equal.” You might ask, “What about women?” Abigail Adams brought up the question in a letter to her husband, an author of the US Constitution, requesting, “in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.” The mere fact that women were active in fighting for change is one of the most revolutionary elements of that century and after. Some of these fighters were intellectual women of the European Enlightenment. But the revolutionary spirit had a much wider reach, including women from varying socio-economic and geographical backgrounds.

What do you think it means to “Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than [their] ancestors”? After you’ve discussed your ideas with the class, it’s time to start learning more about revolutionary women. You are going to both remember and celebrate revolutionary women by creating an influencer campaign for one woman. So, what does it take to be “most revolutionary”? Well, that will be determined by the class, but generally, it will be the woman whom you show to have fostered the most change, with the effects of those changes still being felt around the globe today.

Once you’ve been assigned a revolutionary woman to study, take out the Revolutionary Women Worksheet. First, read the excerpt that aligns to the geographic area your woman is from. You might also want to check out the other excerpts so you have a sense of the competition. Then, you should conduct Internet research to find out more about the woman you are studying. Consider the following questions as you dive into your research.

• Do they go by other names?
• What was their childhood and background like?
• What made them ordinary?
• What made them extraordinary?

Be sure to use the research cards on the Revolutionary Women Worksheet to help you evaluate and record your sources.

Once you have a good sense of why the woman you are studying is revolutionary, it’s time to move on to the influencer campaign. Your teacher will tell you who the specific audience is for this campaign so that you can target your materials accordingly. The audience will ultimately vote on the campaigns to identify the top three most revolutionary women in history.

For this campaign, the woman is the “influencer” and you’re the marketers collaborating with her. Your campaign must include at least five slides that incorporate the following information in one way or another. Feel free to get creative, but also make sure you address each of the criteria, in no particular order:

1. Product being endorsed
   • This is the agent of change/change itself (in this case, the woman).
2. Review(s) of the product
   • How did the change go? Was it positive, negative, or somewhere in between?
   • Find and cite 2-3 credible sources who may have offered an opinion on this change, whether positive, negative, or somewhere in between.
3. Contextualization
   • Why did this happen at this time? What were the contexts and conditions that helped spur this change?
4. Reach
   • How many people did this impact? (That is, study the reach of the impact and display it somehow).
5. Relevance to today
   • Why is this person still important today? Where do we see their revolution at work?

The campaigns could be created using PowerPoint, Google Slides, or your teacher may suggest other options. They should include, where possible, images, data, and perhaps even videos that help strengthen the campaign. Each final product should be something that the audience can click through without requiring any outside information to understand what the campaign is about. In this way, the judges/audience could do a gallery walk through the campaigns without needing anyone there to explain them.

Once the campaigns have been shared and voted on, and the top three women selected, wrap up with a discussion of why the women chosen were the most revolutionary. Was it more about what they did or more about how the campaigner was able to argue their position? And were these the more well-known women or were the women chosen more representative of everyday women who happened to do something revolutionary? Finally, talk about how you were able to trace this historical impact over time, and think about other ways you can continue to connect the past to today, making sure that the history you learn is usable and applicable to you.