Alabama Social Studies SS24.8.18

SS24.8.18 is a cluster heading. These are the individual standards under it.

• SS24.8.18a

  Trace the origins of Enlightenment ideas to earlier eras and movements, including Classical Greece and Rome, Christianity, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and...

01

What Students Need to Do

Students summarize ideas about reason, natural rights, and religious tolerance. They connect those ideas to Greek and Roman thought, Christianity, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. They explain how the ideas gained an audience in Europe.

02

What Mastery Looks Like

A student can explain how Galileo's methods encouraged people to question inherited claims and how Reformation debates challenged religious authority. They can describe how printed books and salons spread arguments about rights and government.

03

Common Misconceptions

Students may think Enlightenment ideas appeared from nowhere or that experiments proved people had political rights. Some assume all European rulers and churches welcomed religious tolerance and limits on royal power.

04

How to Assess It

Ask students to name two Enlightenment ideas, trace each to an earlier movement, and explain one way people in Europe encountered these ideas.

1. 01

   Tape a timeline across desks, then have students place cards for Aristotle, Roman law, Christian moral worth, Renaissance humanism, Luther, Galileo, and Locke.

2. 02

   Have students write three sentences on how Galileo's methods could influence arguments about a king's power and where that comparison fails.

3. 03

   Read aloud 'Test claims with observation' and 'Read scripture yourself'; teams name each earlier movement and connect it to an Enlightenment idea.

4. 04

   Bring a local school board's public comment rules; students mark where they see free expression and where the rules limit speech.

• SS24.6.12b

  Compare and contrast how Enlightenment thinkers interpreted the purpose of government and the relationship between government and citizens.

• SS24.WH.1b

  Summarize the influence of the Enlightenment on the American Revolution.

• SS24.WH.1

  Explain how the Enlightenment influenced societies and inspired revolutions in Europe and the Americas.