France AOS 1: Movements, Ideas, Leaders

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France AOS 1 Movements, Ideas, Leaders
EventsPreparing your students for SAC 1

• Luke Cashman
• Penleigh Essendon Grammar School
• Luke.Cashman_at_pegs.vic.edu.au

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Purpose of todays talk

• What are the four tasks teachers can set?
• Which task to set for SAC 1 and why
• How to write SACs
• What conditions to set
• How students could approach certain types of
  questions
• Practice tasks
• Sample responses
• How to grade SACs
• General hints tips for teachers students if
  we get time

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Options for SAC 1

• Analysis of visual and written primary source
  documents
• Argumentative Essay
• Research Report
• Historiographical exercises
• Teachers may choose the order of the assessment
  tasks
• Source VCE History Study Design October, 2009),
  p135

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Points to consider when setting the task for SAC
1

• The VCAA examination
• Section A Short answer questions (x2) document
  analysis
• Section B Document analysis Argumentative
  essay
• Advice for students - Two options
• Decide during reading time based on questions and
  documents
• Decide at some stage during the year (the earlier
  the better)
• The key France AOS 2 Historiography or essay?
• The nature of the task dictates (to an extent)
  how students prepare
• Reduces students preparation load prior to the
  exam
• If students prepare diligently, questions and
  unseen documents should not worry them
• Decide early in the year so preparation time can
  be used more efficiently

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Preparing for SAC 1

• Task
• a. Primary visual and written document analysis
  (as per Section B of the exam)
• OR
• b. Research Report (as per Section A of the exam)
• General tips for setting the SAC
• As close to the relevant VCAA exam task as
  possible use key phrases and stems
• Completed under exam conditions (time unseen no
  cheat sheet)
• Number of tasks or questions - depends on
  available time

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SAC 1, Option 1 Document analysis task

• Select documents from different sections of the
  Area of Study
• Chronology
• M.I.L.E.
• Select two or more primary sources one visual
  one written (visuals need to be VERY clear)
• Set questions as per exam task
• Questions a b (2 marks each)
• Short comprehension-style draw attention to key
  parts of the document
• Identify

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SAC 1, Option 1 Document analysis task

• Question c (6 marks)
• Can ask the students to
• Put the documents in its historical context
• Discuss what factors contributed to the
  documents production
• Weight the significance of the event, leader,
  movement or document
• Key phrases
• By quoting from the extract, and using your own
  knowledge, explain
• By referring to specific parts of the visual,
  and using your own knowledge, explain

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Type c questions

• RUUP Read Underline Understand Plan.
• Spend about 10 minutes on this question.
• The first sentence MUST answer the question
  rather than simply repeat it.
• The next few sentences should expand on the first
  by discussing in some detail three examples.
• It is a good strategy to relate abstract
  political, social or economic concepts to
  particular social groups movements and their
  particular grievances or desires.

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Type c questions continued

• Use signposting clearly and effectively to
  differentiate between your points and help the
  assessor allocate marks.
• It is imperative that you refer directly to the
  source at some point. Quote from written sources
  or describe a particular element of a visual
  source.
• Be as specific as possible in the demonstration
  of your historical knowledge (movements, ideas,
  leaders, events, dates, policies, laws etc).
• Word limit approx 150 words
• If given, stick to the timeframe in the question.
  (In other words, swim between the flags)

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Sample Question c response I

• c. By quoting from the extract, and using your
  own knowledge, explain the ideas and events which
  influenced the noble deputies on 4 August 1789.
  (VCAA exam, 2011)
• A variety of impulses, both self-effacing and
  self-interested, governed the nobles actions on
  the Night of Patriotic Delirium. First and
  foremost, the nobles were motivated by a desire
  to abolish those title-deeds which humiliate the
  human race. This was evidence of patriotic
  self-sacrifice amongst the nobility giving up
  ones privileges for the benefit of the nation.
  Secondly, some nobles were no doubt terrified by
  the prospect of peasant uprisings called the
  Great Fear and the threat they posed not only
  to property but also the nobles safety.
  Relinquishing feudal dues, which were eventually
  made redeemable, was a relatively cheap way of
  protecting the real source of their wealth and,
  more importantly, their lives. Finally, the
  nobles were shamed into renouncing their social
  status by the bourgeois deputies who arranged for
  the liberal-minded Duc dAiguillon and the
  Viscount de Noailles to dramatically call for the
  abolition of feudal privileges. (Word count 148
  words)

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Sample Question c response II

• c. By referring directly to the representation,
  and using your own knowledge, explain the range
  of economic burdens placed on the peasantry of
  France prior to the outbreak of Revolution in
  1789.
• The peasantry faced an overwhelming range of
  fiscal and economic responsibilities during the
  Old Regime. The most onerous were the land rents
  which, due to population increase throughout the
  eighteenth century, had risen sharply. While the
  first two estates, and many towns, enjoyed tax
  exempt status, the peasants bore the full weight
  of the taille, vingtieme and the gabelle, all of
  which had increased due to Frances involvement
  in foreign wars. This is represented in the
  document by the First and Second Estates crushing
  the old peasant with the weight of their
  privileged status. Dues such as champarts, lods
  et vents and banalities, fees for use of wine
  presses, mills and ovens, were also payable to
  the peasants feudal lords. The steep rise in
  bread prices in the 1780s, due largely to a
  series of bad harvests, placed another burden
  peasants. In essence, the heaviest financial
  burden fell on those who could least afford to
  pay. (158 words)

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SAC 1, Option 1 Document analysis task

• Question d (10 marks)
• Evaluate the usefulness of the document in
  providing a useful/reliable understanding of the
  factors that contributed to the development of a
  revolutionary situation
• Discuss the point of view of the source (quote or
  discuss an aspect of a visual)
• Bring in historians who agree and disagree with
  the source
• Key phrases
• Evaluate the usefulness of this document in
  understanding
• Evaluate how reliable this representation is in
  providing
• In your response quote parts of the document and
  refer to different views of the Revolution of
  1789.
• In your response refer to specific parts of the
  visual and to different views of the Revolution
  of 1789.
• Ensure that Questions c and d are sufficiently
  different

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Type d questions

• RUUP Read Underline Understand Plan.
• Spend about 15 minutes on this question.
• After studying the source, decide whether you
  think it is reliable or useful. This will be
  based on your understanding of the topic or
  event.
• The first sentence MUST comment on the
  reliability or usefulness of the source.
• Explain briefly what the source says about the
  particular topic or event.
• It is imperative that you refer directly to the
  extract. Quote from written sources or describe a
  particular element of a visual source.

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Type d questions

• Discuss specific historians or contemporary
  points of view that agree with the source.
• Discuss specific historians or contemporary
  points of view that either disagree with the
  viewpoint offered by the source or offer a
  different explanation.
• Discuss events or facts that challenge the
  validity of the source.
• Use signposting throughout to indicate where
  viewpoints differ or concur (Similarly on the
  other hand however etc).
• Summarise your findings in the final sentence.
  (Therefore, while this representation)
• Word limit approx 250 words

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Type d questions

• Remember
• Spell and use the terms bias and biased
  properly.
• A document is not unreliable or useless because
  it is a primary source.
• Similarly, an extract is not useful or reliable
  because it is a secondary source
• Avoid black and white assumptions about
  reliability and usefulness
• Take each document or extract on its own merits
  and evaluate its merit in terms of the question.
• Stick to the timeframe given in the question
  (swim between the flags)

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Sample Question d response I

• d. Evaluate how useful this extract might be in
  providing an accurate representation of
  revolutionary ideas and leaders who shaped the
  Revolution to 4 August 1789. In your response
  quote parts of the extract and refer to different
  views of the Revolution. (VCAA exam 2011)
• While this extract from Mathiez is quite useful
  in understanding what motivated the liberal
  nobles, it does not discuss a sufficiently broad
  range of leaders and ideas. Mathiez explains the
  nobles impulse for patriotic self-sacrifice and
  the bourgeois deputies insistence that this be
  done for the fatherland. This sacrifice was
  limited, however, as the feudal dues could be
  redeemable for a money payment. Regardless of
  genuine extent of their propensity for
  self-abnegation, the nobles actions on the Night
  of Patriotic Delirium effectively brought to an
  end centuries of feudalism. Simon Schama notes
  that the nobility played a leading role in the
  Revolution their obstruction of Louis tax
  reform program on the basis that only the
  Nation had the right to make decisions
  regarding state finances is evidence of this. In
  his What is the Third Estate? (January 1789)
  the Abbé Sieyès made a much more aggressive call
  for the end of feudal and ecclesiastical
  privilege. His passionate claim that the first
  two estates were parasitic was, according to
  Doyle, the most eloquent expression of
  bourgeois fury. For Marxist historians such as
  Soboul and Rudé, the desire for liberty and
  equality also motivated the bourgeois deputies of
  the Third Estate. Their demand for a constitution
  and the separation of state powers, expressed in
  the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), was
  instrumental in demolishing the absolute monarchy
  of France of the old regime. Therefore, while
  Mathiez account helps us understand the
  significance of the noble deputies, the role
  played by other leaders and ideas must also be
  considered. (256 words)

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Sample Question d response II

• d. Evaluate to what extent this representation
  presents reliable evidence of the range of causes
  of the French Revolution. Refer to other views in
  your response. 
• While this source is quite useful in
  understanding the grievances of the peasants
  prior to the Revolution, it says nothing about
  the frustrations of the urban workers and the
  bourgeoisie. As Lefebvre has noted in his studies
  on the peasantry, this group faced a range of
  crippling financial burdens such as land rent,
  the taille and the champart. The taxes and dues,
  along with their resentment at the feudal system,
  were important factors in the long-term causes of
  the Revolution. These are all symbolised on the
  cartoon by the burden placed on the old peasant
  by the two privileged orders. Rudés research on
  the urban workers, on the other hand, reveals a
  range of grievances including rising bread
  prices, stagnant or declining wages and high
  unemployment. These factors contributed to
  episodes of urban unrest such as the Reveillon
  riots and the storming of the Bastille. For the
  French middle class, their grievances with the
  old regime were ideological rather than material.
  In his What is the Third Estate?, the Abbé
  Sieyès outlined the ideas of liberty, fiscal and
  legal equality, and demanded that the Third
  Estate be recognised as the sovereign body of
  France. This diagram accords with the view of
  Marxist historians, such as Soboul, who argue
  that the Revolution was a class struggle between
  the progressive Third Estate and the reactionary
  privileged classes. Revisionist historians such
  as George Taylor and T. C. W. Blanning ,however,
  see grievances as ideological rather than class
  based. They point to the existence of the liberal
  nobility and curés who sought to reform the
  French state. Therefore, while this
  representation reveals the grievances of the
  peasantry, other sources are required to gain a
  more balanced picture of the origins of the
  revolution. (275 words)

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Useful resources

• The following are good sources for visual and
  written documents
• Past VCAA exams
• Past Insight and HTAV exams
• D.I. Wright (ed), The French Revolution
  Introductory Documents, St. Lucia University of
  Queensland Press, 1974.
• J.H. Stewart, A Documentary Survey of the French
  Revolution, New York Macmillan, 1964.
• Fielding and Morcombe, The Spirit of Change
  France in Revolution, NSW McGraw-Hill, 2003.
• Richad Cobb, Voices of the French Revolution,
  Topsfields Salem House, 1988.

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SAC 1, Option 2 Research Report

• Two possibilities
• 1) Traditional research report (See example)
• 2) Short answer questions (as per the exam)
• Useful group activity cluster questions by
  topic have each group develop generic response
  to similar questions
• Three or more questions (depending on time)
• From different sections of the Area of Study (in
  the chronology and M.I.L.E.)
• Students should include three or four points
• Must include historians views (not in the exam,
  though)
• Looking at the role and impact of key social
  groups is a good way to structure a response

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Short answer questions

• Approx 250 words per question
• RUUP Read, Underline, Understand, Plan
• Stay within the timeframe given in the question
  (swim between the flags)
• Similar in a sense to c questions in document
  analysis
• The first sentence must answer the question
  directly the historiographical debate can be
  outlined here
• Three or four points that develop the main idea
  an historian can be linked to each main idea (eg
  Doyle politics Rudé urban workers Soboul
  bourgeoisie)
• Use signposting to connect or differentiate ideas
• Include specific detail groups movements
  individuals key events (dates) the impact of
  ideas and ideologies policies and
  documents/speeches

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Short answer questions

• Focus explain how a movement, leader, idea or
  event contributed to the development of a
  revolutionary situation, or explain their
  importance/significance
• The matter of how can be address by including
  the word by in the first sentence
• Use words that highlight causal role of an event,
  person etc catalyst, highlighted,
  intensified dissatisfaction, polarised,
  popularised, articulated, stimulated led
  to, contributed to, crucial factor in.
• How and why key groups withdrew their support for
  the regime
• What mistakes or errors were made by the old
  regime (eg poor decisions failed attempts at
  reform increased political repression weak
  leadership)
• How and why particular groups challenged the
  political and social basis of the old regime
• The contribution of ideas and abstract constructs
  like social and political structures can be
  discussed in terms of the grievances and
  expectations of key social groups.

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Sample short answer response I

• Using three or four points, explain the
  importance of the storming of the Bastille in the
  development of the French Revolution between July
  and August 1789. Provide evidence to support your
  answer. 
• While all historians of the French Revolution
  agree that the storming of the Bastille was an
  enormously significant event, they focus on
  different aspects. For Marxists such as Rudé, the
  storming of the Bastille represented a pivotal
  moment in the classic model of the bourgeois
  revolution. Professional journalists such as
  Desmoulins urged the crowd to arms from the
  Palais Royale while the petit bourgeoisie, small
  shop owners, actually assaulted the fortress on
  14 July. Doyle, on the other hand, focuses on key
  political events. He argues that the fall of the
  Bastille symbolised to Louis XVI that he had lost
  control of his capital city and key units of the
  army. When he agreed to withdraw the troops
  stationed around Paris and grant a constitution,
  the centuries-old absolute monarchy came to an
  end. Lefebvres work on the peasantry
  demonstrates that the Great Fear was partly
  caused by the news that the royal dungeon had
  fallen to the Parisian crowd. The peasantry
  feared a combined royal-aristocratic backlash for
  their humiliation in Paris and assumed that
  brigands had been hired to destroy the crop that
  was ripening in the fields. When this failed to
  occur, the peasants turned on their local feudal
  lords. The destruction caused during the Great
  Fear convinced the nobles to relinquish their
  privileges in the Night of Patriotic Delirium on
  4 5 August. Finally, Schama sees the bloodshed
  of the 14 July as the essence of Revolution. The
  use of violence to achieve political ends would,
  he argues, only accelerate in the following
  years. Overall, then, the fall of the Bastille
  had a wide-ranging effect of the political and
  social fabric of France of the old regime. (282
  words)

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Sample short answer response II

• Using three or four points, explain how the
  Kings responses to revolutionary ideas
  contributed to the further development of a
  revolutionary situation in France between 1788
  and 1789. Provide evidence to support your
  answer. 
• Historians are unanimous in their view that Louis
  was a poor leader at the best of times and a
  disaster during the tumult of a revolution. He
  was weak when he should have been strong and
  stubborn when he should have yielded. After being
  cornered by the bankruptcy crisis and the
  intransigence of the Assembly of Notables and
  Parlement of Paris, Louis was forced to call for
  the Estate-General (August 1788). McPhee argues
  that Louis decision to call the Estate-General
  for May 1789 signalled the collapse of his reign
  as he was essentially admitting that he could no
  longer rule his nation alone. Additionally, by
  inviting his subjects to vent their grievances in
  the cahiers de doléances, Louis raised the hopes
  and expectations of millions that reform would be
  genuine and profound. Also, his silence on the
  issue of whether voting would be by order or by
  head was, according to Rudé, was a great error.
  The Third Estate assumed that the aristocracy and
  clergy would use this structure to defend their
  privileges. When the Third Estate deputies, and
  their allies from the privileged orders, demanded
  a constitution, Louis retaliated by holding a
  séance royale (23 June 1789) whereby he attempted
  to nullify the Tennis Court Oath. This convinced
  the Third Estate that reform within the system
  was impossible revolution was the only answer.
  Louis responded by calling thousands of troops
  into the Paris/Versailles area. As Schama notes,
  Louis heavy-handedness, along with the untimely
  sacking of Necker, inadvertently sparked the
  storming of the Bastille. Therefore, in spite of
  his best efforts, Louis responses to the attacks
  on the political and social structures of France
  of the old regime facilitated the development of
  a revolution. (286 words)

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Assessing SAC 1

• Mark per question rather than globally against
  the criteria
• VCAA requires a grade out of 50 for each convert
  the scores with Excel
• Sample responses in the Assessors Report are a
  good way to gauge the relative performance of
  your students
• Ask students for permission to copy distribute
  good samples
• Best samples are those done under exam conditions
• Avoid using current students work if possible
  anonymous
• Type up if possible warts and all
• Have students grade samples and justify their
  decision (good empathy exercise)

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General hints and tips I

• Think about what you want your students to write
  how can they best demonstrate their knowledge and
  understanding of the Revolution?
• Attempt the task yourself first (in full or point
  form)
• For students
• Neat hand-writing (legible)
• Be succinct and fluent (to the point,
  understandable and enjoyable!!!)
• Answer the question focus on key words
• Use signposting (eg firstly, secondly, thirdly,
  however, on the other hand etc)
• Use reading time well (also thinking time)

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General hints and tips II

• For students
• Be time-aware and disciplined in the SAC
• Get used to the layout and format of the SAC
• Genuine practice tasks completed under
  examination conditions (e.g. time)
• Use specific facts and information
• Avoid vague remarks like met the needs of the
  people or made the French happy

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General hints and tips III

• For students
• If you use extra writing space, indicate this and
  the question being continued CLEARLY
• Know the chronology of key events and dates
• Understand the chain of cause and effect
• Be able to work backwards from an event so you
  can discuss causes
• Use all the lines given but know when to stop
• Speak to your teacher as often as possible
• Read, read, read write, write, write