Alabama Social Studies SS24.8.14c
The Standard
- SS24.8.14
- Summarize the rise of absolutism and explain how absolute monarchy differed from governing practices in Europe before the seventeenth century.
Describe how the development of absolutism affected governments in Russia and Prussia under the reigns of Peter the Great, Frederick the Great, and Catherine the Great.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how Peter the Great and Catherine the Great changed Russia's government, and how Frederick the Great governed Prussia. They connect each ruler's policies to the power of the monarch, officials, or nobles.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can link Peter's Table of Ranks to a government staffed by people who served the ruler. They can explain that Frederick kept royal power while reforming Prussia's government, and that Catherine gave Russian nobles more privileges.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may place Frederick in Russia or assume that all three rulers made the same changes. They may think reform meant giving up royal power, or that absolute monarchs governed without officials.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Name one policy for each ruler. For each policy, write one sentence explaining who gained power or how the government changed.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Hand out policy cards, including the Table of Ranks and Catherine's Charter to the Nobility, for students to sort by ruler and government effect.
Ask students to write: Which ruler changed the role of nobles most? Use two policies as evidence.
Play a matching game with ruler, policy, and government effect cards, then have students explain one match aloud.
Give students a U.S. checks and balances chart and ask them to circle two limits on a president that these monarchs did not face.
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Related Standards
- SS24.8.14a
Explain how the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia led to the rise of absolutism.
- SS24.8.16c
Compare the policies of absolutism and social structures of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan to European monarchies.
- SS24.8.14b
Analyze the rise of absolutism in France under Louis XIV, including the divine right of kings.
- SS24.8.14
Summarize the rise of absolutism and explain how absolute monarchy differed from governing practices in Europe before the seventeenth century.
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