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8th grade · Social Studies · Unit 11 of 13

Absolutism to Enlightenment

Kings, scientists and new ideas about power

What your child practices

Absolute monarchs in France, Spain and Russia, the Scientific Revolution's challenge to old authorities, and Enlightenment thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau and their ideas about government.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 8.14; 8.15; 8.18 · absolute monarchs, England's Parliament and Bill of Rights, and Enlightenment ideas

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Absolute monarchs held total power; Peter the Great modernized Russia with a navy and a new capital, St. Petersburg.
  2. In the Scientific Revolution, Copernicus argued that Earth and the planets move around the Sun.
  3. Enlightenment thinkers questioned power: Rousseau wrote that government gets its authority from a social contract among the people.

Example: According to Rousseau, where does a government get its authority? Absolute monarchs claimed power came from God. Rousseau disagreed. He said it comes from an agreement among the people. Answer: from a social contract among the people

Absolutism to Enlightenment in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 11 of 13 in 8th grade Social Studies, after Encounter & the Atlantic World and before Ottoman & Ming Empires.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which of these thinkers was part of the Scientific Revolution, not the Enlightenment's political debates?

    • Locke
    • Rousseau
    • Galileo
    • Montesquieu

  2. Question 2

    The idea that a monarch's right to rule comes directly from God is called…

    • the social contract
    • natural rights
    • divine right
    • separation of powers

  3. Question 3

    Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that a government gets its authority from…

    • divine right
    • the richest family
    • the strongest army
    • a social contract among the people

  4. Question 4

    Galileo used a telescope to…

    • prove Earth is the center of everything
    • measure the oceans
    • discover America
    • observe moons orbiting Jupiter, which supported Copernicus

  5. Question 5

    Philip II of Spain sent the Spanish Armada to invade England in 1588. What happened?

    • It never left Spain
    • It conquered England
    • It was defeated by English ships and storms
    • It sailed to China

  6. Question 6

    Johannes Kepler showed that the planets move in…

    • ellipses, or oval paths
    • straight lines
    • squares
    • perfect circles

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