Lesson 3: The French Revolution
Duration of Days: 4
Lesson Objective
Students will analyze the causes of the French Revolution and explain how economic inequality, political structures, and Enlightenment ideas contributed to revolutionary change.
What conditions lead societies toward revolution?
How do economic and political inequalities contribute to instability?
How do ideas influence revolutionary movements?
Revolution
Social inequality
Political reform
HIS.9-12.3 Analyze complex relationships among multiple causes and effects of historical events.
HIS.9-12.6 Analyze how power, authority, and governance influence historical outcomes.
Students analyze cause-and-effect relationships and construct written arguments using evidence.
Students examine economic, political, and ideological causes of the French Revolution and analyze how these factors interacted. Primary DOK level: 4.
Connections to modern protests, political reform movements, and debates over economic inequality.
Students may attribute the revolution to a single cause.
Students may oversimplify the motivations of different social groups.
Cause-and-effect charts.
Group discussion supports.
Written analysis explaining multiple causes of the French Revolution.
Political cartoons, economic charts, excerpts from revolutionary documents.