Alabama Social Studies SS24.WH.1a
The Standard
- SS24.WH.1
- Explain how the Enlightenment influenced societies and inspired revolutions in Europe and the Americas.
Compare and contrast the emerging ideas of Adam Smith, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Mary Wollstonecraft, Montesquieu, and Voltaire.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify each thinker’s main idea about rights, government, religion, education, or the economy. They explain where two thinkers agree and where they differ.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can match all six thinkers to their main ideas. They can explain that Locke focused on protecting individual rights, while Rousseau stressed laws based on the general will.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat Locke’s consent of the governed and Rousseau’s general will as the same idea. They may also say Smith wanted no government at all or that Wollstonecraft wrote only about voting rights.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Match the six thinkers to these claims: protect rights, follow the general will, compete in markets, educate women equally, separate powers, tolerate religions. Then write one similarity and one difference between two thinkers.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Have students place six thinker idea cards on a chart labeled rights, government, economy, and education, then defend one placement.
Ask students to write which idea Locke and Rousseau would agree on, then name a point where they would disagree.
Play a match game with thinker cards and short policy proposals, such as separating government powers or allowing religious freedom.
Compare prices for the same item in two grocery flyers, then ask how Smith’s ideas about competition might explain the difference.
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Related Standards
- SS24.USG.1
Explain how Enlightenment principles informed the structure and principles of the United States government, its founding documents, its institutions, and the di...
- SS24.8.18
Summarize the main ideas of the Enlightenment and describe their emergence in European society.
- SS24.8.15a
Compare and contrast the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
- SS24.WH.4b
Compare the theories of capitalism, utilitarianism, socialism, and Marxism, including the philosophies of John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and Robert Owen.
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