Culminating activity: Using the Mississippi Social Studies Framework standards for World History From the Age of Enlightenment to the Present (4a under Global affairs), Students will be divided into three groups representing the Glorious Revolution of England, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution. From there, students will be divided into two sub-groups that represent opposing sides in the revolution. Students will act as participants in the revolution and defend their specific sides in the classroom debate. Each student will prepare an argument of their own to turn into the teacher before collaboration with their subgroup. Following the in class debate, there will be a class wide discussion where the students will come up with a list of principles for determining the “right side” in a rebellion.
Activity 1: Students will use the History learning site to get a general background on the glorious revolution. The website is set up in such a way that any terms or events that the student might be fuzzy on can be followed to another page. Students will compile an outline of events and ascertain the two major groups that are in conflict. Within the same activity, students will reference the video on the glorious revolution.
Artifact 1: The History Learning website is a secondary education level website in the United Kingdom. I was looking for a resource that would be more user friendly than some of the comprehensive studies I had come across. This site will allow the user to get an accurate and simplistic idea of the tenets of the conflict preceding the Glorious Revolution.
The 1688 Revolution. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/1688_revolution.htm
“The 1688 Revolution”. HistoryLearningSite.co.uk.2007.web
Artifact 2: Episode 13 of the documentary” Monarchy” is entitled The Glorious Revolution . This film is an amazing documentary and will give the students a less simplistic look at the conflict while activating their visual learning capacities.
Runcie, James, (producer), Barrie, David (producer), Burge, James ( Producer) & Runcie, James (Director). (2005). Episode 13, The Glorious Revolution [Monarchy] Channel Four Television Corp. and Education Broadcasting Corporation.
Activity 2: Students will create a political cartoon that summarizes the major points of the Terror. Students will read the modern history sourcebook: Maximmillian Robespierre: Justification for the use of terror. Then they will reference the political cartoon as an example for them to make their own political cartoon based upon their readings. This activity will help students to connect to their visual/ spatial learning capacities and tie into the essential question, “How do we determine the ‘right’ side in a rebellion”.
Artifact 3: This is a website with primary documents that are available online. This document is a speech written by Robespierre giving his justification for the terror. This artifact should give insight into the feeling of the public as Robespierre was making a justification and give insight into this important historical figure.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.asp Internet Modern History Sourcebook
Maximilien Robespierre: Justification for the use of Terror. His speech that he gave February 5, 1794. accessed 9/11/2014
Maximilien Robespierre (1758 1794) was the leader of the twelveman Committee of Public Safety elected by the National Convention, and which effectively governed France at the height of the radical phase of the revolution. He had once been a fairly straightforward liberal thinker – reputedly he slept with a copy of Rousseau’s Social Contract at his side. But his own purity of belief led him to impatience with others.
The committee was among the most creative executive bodies ever seen – and rapidly put into effect policies which stabilized the French economy and began the formation of the very successful French army. It also directed it energies against counter-revolutionary uprisings, especially in the south and west of France. In doing so it unleashed the reign of terror. Here Robespierre, in his speech of February 5,1794, from which excerpts are given here, discussed this issue. The figures behind this speech indicate that in the five months from September, 1793, to February 5, 1794, the revolutionary tribunal in Paris convicted and executed 238 men and 31 women and acquitted 190 persons, and that on February 5 there were 5,434 individuals in the prisons in Paris awaiting trial.
Robespierre was frustrated with the progress of the revolution. After issuing threats to the National Convention, he himself was arrested in July 1794. He tried to shoot himslef but missed, and spent his last few hours with his jaw hanging off. He was guillotined, as a victim of the terror, on July 28, 1794.
But, to found and consolidate democracy, to achieve the peaceable reign of the constitutional laws, we must end the war of liberty against tyranny and pass safely across the storms of the revolution: such is the aim of the revolutionary system that you have enacted Your conduct, then, ought also to be regulated by the stormy circumstances in which the republic is placed; and the plan of your administration must result from the spirit of the revolutionary government combined with the general principles of democracy.
Now, what is the fundamental principle of the democratic or popular government-that is, the essential spring which makes it move? It is virtue; I am speaking of the public virtue which effected so many prodigies in Greece and Rome and which ought to produce much more surprising ones in republican France; of that virtue which is nothing other than the love of country and of its laws.
But as the essence of the republic or of democracy is equality, it follows that the love of country necessarily includes the love of equality.
It is also true that this sublime sentiment assumes a preference for the public interest over every particular interest; hence the love of country presupposes or produces all the virtues: for what are they other than that spiritual strength which renders one capable of those sacrifices? And how could the slave of avarice or ambition, for example, sacrifice his idol to his country?
Not only is virtue the soul of democracy; it can exist only in that government ….
Artifact 4: This is a political cartoon depicting the beheading of Robespierre by the guillotine. After reading his speech, this should give the students ideas about the nature of revolution and help them to create a political cartoon of their own. http://nrhs.nred.org/www/nred_nrhs/site/hosting/Resources4SocialStudies/HistSites/FrenchRevCartoonWeb/images/guillotinesofRobespierre.jpg
Activity 3: Students will read an excerpt from American Military History and the evolution of western warfare and from the reading, set up a demonstration within the classroom of the continental armies fighting style and how it came to be so effective. After this demonstration, the class will have a discussion about the reasons that the fighting style differed so much from the British and what the implications of that were for the American revolution. Students can also reference the firearm images to get an idea of the kinds of weapons they used. This activity should access the kinesthetic and analytic learning capacities.
Artifact 5: This book gives an overview of the military conflict and causes for the American Revolution. While the students are busy seeking the fighting style of the Patriots vs. the British, they will also gain a working knowledge of the conflict itself.
Robert A. Doughy and Ira D. Gruber American Military History and the Evolution of Western Warfare(1996). D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington Massachusetts. Chapter 2: The War For American Independence, 1775-1783: The people at war, pg 29-67.
Artifact 6: http://www.gunclassics.com/brownbess.html
Artifact 7: This is a film that shows a model of a guillotine and how it operates.
Laura Riels / Curriculum Archive 
