Greek Democracy
Goals & Objectives
Students will analyze primary source documents and use their knowledge of history and American democracy to write a brief essay on ancient Greek democracy.
The goal is to help students grapple with what the ancient Greeks considered democracy and how it shaped American democracy today.
Another goal is to have students utilize and practice debating skills to determine their response to the DBQ.
California State Content Standards & Common Core Literacy Standards
California State Content Standards
State the key differences between Athenian, or direct, democracy and representative democracy.
Common Core Literacy Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7
Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.
Driving Historical Question
How democratic were the ancient Greeks?
Lesson Introduction ‖ Time: 5-10 min
As a warm up, students will read the introductory essay in order to prepare their minds for the primary documents. Students will be instructed to share with their partner three interesting facts they learned from the essay.
***All handouts are below
Vocabulary ‖ Time: 5-10 min
These terms are necessary to understand the primary documents and will be address during the introductory essay and group collaboration/discussion time.
Greek democracy
American democracy
Ostracized
Pericles
Funeral Oration
Plato
The Republic
Content Delivery ‖ Time: 25-30 min
For this lesson, students will receive two groups of sources. The sources within each group conflict with one another. Some of these sources are visuals, while the second set are visual sources. For the visuals, students are to pay attention not only to the content of its subject matter, but also to its artistic style, shading, composition, camera angle, symbols, and other features that add to the image’s meaning. With the written sources, students are to notice the writing style, bias, even what the source leaves out or does not talk about.
***All handouts are below.
Students will analyze primary source documents and use their knowledge of history and American democracy to write a brief essay on ancient Greek democracy.
The goal is to help students grapple with what the ancient Greeks considered democracy and how it shaped American democracy today.
Another goal is to have students utilize and practice debating skills to determine their response to the DBQ.
California State Content Standards & Common Core Literacy Standards
California State Content Standards
State the key differences between Athenian, or direct, democracy and representative democracy.
Common Core Literacy Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7
Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.
Driving Historical Question
How democratic were the ancient Greeks?
Lesson Introduction ‖ Time: 5-10 min
As a warm up, students will read the introductory essay in order to prepare their minds for the primary documents. Students will be instructed to share with their partner three interesting facts they learned from the essay.
***All handouts are below
Vocabulary ‖ Time: 5-10 min
These terms are necessary to understand the primary documents and will be address during the introductory essay and group collaboration/discussion time.
Greek democracy
American democracy
Ostracized
Pericles
Funeral Oration
Plato
The Republic
Content Delivery ‖ Time: 25-30 min
For this lesson, students will receive two groups of sources. The sources within each group conflict with one another. Some of these sources are visuals, while the second set are visual sources. For the visuals, students are to pay attention not only to the content of its subject matter, but also to its artistic style, shading, composition, camera angle, symbols, and other features that add to the image’s meaning. With the written sources, students are to notice the writing style, bias, even what the source leaves out or does not talk about.
***All handouts are below.
Student Engagement ‖ Time: 10 min
In groups, through collaboration and discussion students will study the documents worksheets that provide critical thinking questions. Students will discuss each question but divide the questions amongst themselves to respond to in a google doc. Each group will also use the Comparing the Documents worksheet to decide which of the sources would be more useful to a historian.
***All handouts are below
Lesson Closure ‖ Time: 5 min
The teacher will lead students into a class debate to decide which of the sources would be most useful to a historian.
Assessments
Students will respond to one of the two document based questions using their analysis of primary source documents and their knowledge of history to write a brief essay answering the question. Students are to utilize all four documents in their essay.
Accommodations for English Learners, Striving Readers and Students with Special Needs
Since the first DBQ is less demanding, struggling students will be assigned the first question. Teacher will scaffold for striving readers by giving them a modified version of the introductory essay, provide sentence starts and/or an outline for the essay,
Resources
All handouts are necessary for this lesson are below:
In groups, through collaboration and discussion students will study the documents worksheets that provide critical thinking questions. Students will discuss each question but divide the questions amongst themselves to respond to in a google doc. Each group will also use the Comparing the Documents worksheet to decide which of the sources would be more useful to a historian.
***All handouts are below
Lesson Closure ‖ Time: 5 min
The teacher will lead students into a class debate to decide which of the sources would be most useful to a historian.
Assessments
Students will respond to one of the two document based questions using their analysis of primary source documents and their knowledge of history to write a brief essay answering the question. Students are to utilize all four documents in their essay.
Accommodations for English Learners, Striving Readers and Students with Special Needs
Since the first DBQ is less demanding, struggling students will be assigned the first question. Teacher will scaffold for striving readers by giving them a modified version of the introductory essay, provide sentence starts and/or an outline for the essay,
Resources
All handouts are necessary for this lesson are below:
Introductory Essay | |
File Size: | 212 kb |
File Type: |
First Group of Documents | |
File Size: | 850 kb |
File Type: |
Second Group of Documents | |
File Size: | 288 kb |
File Type: |
Document Based Question | |
File Size: | 79 kb |
File Type: |