I. Curricular Framework

Concept:

Power

Essential Question:

What are the power relationships in your own life?

Bridge:

Relationship Scenarios

Content:

A Study of Absolute Monarchs

Outcomes:

II. Standards Aligned

III. Instruction and Assessment

1. Connect: Connecting to the Concept Experientially

Objective: Students will experience an exercise of absolute power.

Activity: When class begins tell your students that you have been asked by the School Board and the Administration to read the following announcement”
“Due to the increased drug activity on our high school and junior high campuses the School Board and School Administrators have authorized that the following steps be taken:
1. All campuses will be permanently staffed with drug sniffing dogs. These dogs will be present at all school enterances each morning, will patrol the halls during and between classes, and roam through the cafeteria during lunch.
2. All students will be subject to random drug testing. Failure to submit to testing will result in automatic suspension.
3. All student bags, lunches, cases, etc. will be searched daily by their first period teachers.
4. Students may be stopped in the halls at anytime and asked to empty their pockets or bags by any school administrators.
5. Enforcement of these rules will begin tomorrow.
Your students should be upset and full of questions about the legality of the rules and the authority of the school board to enforce them. Answer student questions and outrage with information about the source of the schools boards authority. If students bring up the fact that these actions may violate their rights, counter with the assertion that the school board is willing to risk being sued.
When you feel that your students have accepted that the new “rules” will be enforced, explain to them that the announcement was a hoax and lead them through a discussion about how they felt about the school boards use of power. Make sure to give those who would have supported the school board’s decision a chance to speak and discuss why some would have gone along with the decision and some would not have.

Assessment: Feelings of powerlessness should make you frustrate and anger your students.

2. Attend: Attending to the Connection

Objective: Students will write an essay or journal entry exploring their feelings of powerlessness and the ramifications of those feelings

Activity: Assign students an essay or journal writing assignment in which they address the following questions:
How did you feel when you thought the “school board announcement” was real and you realized that there was nothing you could do to change it?
Would you have gone along with the new rules? Why or why not?
If you were going to oppose the rules what would you do?
When students have completed their writing divide them into small groups and have group members read their responses. Appoint one member of each group to char the common and divergent elements of the responses. When groups have completed their work make a list of class wide commonalities and differences on the board.

Assessment: Student essays can be collected and evaluated based on classroom procedures for style, grammar and content.

Assessment, Phase One, Level of Engagement, Fascination:

3. Image: Creating a Mental Picture

Objective: Students will connect their ideas about personal power relationships with power relationships on the national level.

Activity: Have each student choose a partner. Give each pair one of the relationship scenarios below. If you have fewer pairs than scenarios make sure that the last three are assigned. After students have received their scenario have them plan a brief scene in which they act out the relationship. Their goal should be to present their scenario in such a way that their classmates can identify the power relationship and the source of the power in each. After each skit have student rate, on a scale of 1-10, the amount of power in each relationship.
Scenarios:
Bully – Little Kid
Teacher – Student
Parent – Child
Big Brother – Little Brother
Customer – Waiter
University – Potential Student
Policeman – Speeder
Coach – Athlete
Boss – Employee
Doctor-Patient
Prison Guard – Prisoner
Religious Leader – Believer
General – Soldier
President – American
Dictator – Citizen
When all the scenarios have been demonstrated have students prepare personal visuals of any kind depicting power relationships.

Assessment: Engagement. After the presentation of the Dictator – Citizen scene students should be prepared to examine absolutism and examples of rulers with absolute power.

Assessment, Phase Two, Seeing the Big Picture:

4. Inform: Receiving Facts & Knowledge

Objective: Students will be able to define absolutism and discuss examples of leaders who have wielded absolute power.

Activity: Introduce your lecture over absolutism and absolute monarchs by engaging students in a brief discussion of the sources and uses of governmental power in a democratic government versus a dictatorship. Then define absolutism and discuss the reigns of Peter the Great of Russia and Louis XIV of France. Make sure to describe the sources of their power, the areas of support and defiance for each, their use and abuse of power, and the effect of their reign on the common people.

Assessment: Informed. Your students should feel that they have complete understanding of absolutism.

Assessment, Phase Three, Success with Acquiring Knowledge:

5. Practice: Developing Skills

Objective: Students will apply their definition of absolutism and the sources of absolute power to evaluate the career of European Monarchs.

Activity: Give each student a biographical reading over a medieval monarch such as Charlemagne, Henry VIII, Genghis Khan, Phillip II of Spain, etc. and have them answer the following questions:
1. Was this monarch an absolute ruler?
2. If so what were the sources of his power? If not, why not? What power did he have?
3. How did this monarch use the power he possessed? Give examples.
4. How did you think this monarch’s subjects felt about him?

Assessment: Student answers will vary. However, they should display an accurate knowledge of absolutism and the sources and uses of absolute power.

Assessment, Phase Four, Success with Acquiring Skills:

6. Extend: Extending Learning to the Outside World

Objective: Students will discuss life under an absolute monarch and plan a group presentation.

Activity: Divide students into groups of three or four. Try to combine people who answered questions about different monarchs during the previous segment of the lesson. Have students discuss their answers to question number 4 (How do you think this monarch’s subjects felt about him?) Have tehm make a list of their answers. Then have them list actions they feel those living under an absolute monarch would be likely to take.
When their discussions are over and their lists are made have each group plan a creative presentation depicting life in the United States if the country was suddenly taken over by an absolute monarch. Their project can be a dramatic scene, short-story, poem, song, or cartoon, but all should emphasize life for an average person under an absolute monarch.

Assessment: Motivated. Students should be eager to apply what they have learned about absolutism in a creative project.

7. Refine: Refining the Extension

Objective: Students working in cooperative groups will critique one another’s ideas and creative projects.

Activity: Have student groups combine with other groups and present their creative projects. Each student should prepare a constructive critique of the project presented by the students in the other group. The critique should help to clarify the ideas that are being expresses and provide new insights and ideas about life under the rule of an absolute monarch.

Assessment: Satisfaction. By the end of this activity your students should be satisfied that they have a good understanding of the sources of their leaders power and use of power.

8. Perform: Creative Manifestation of Material Learned

Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of the concept of absolutism by presenting a creative project to the class.

Activity: Students present their dramatic scenes, cartoons, artwork, poems or songs to the class.
Examples of student work in the past have included a song about American life under an absolute dictator sung to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies, humorous scenes in which the aspects of life in a totalitarian regime are exaggerated, and commercials for products before and after absolutist rule.

Assessment: Student presentations should display an accurate knowledge of absolutism and creatively demonstrate their ideas about life under an absolute monarch.

Assessment, Phase Five,Performance, Creative Use of Material Learned: