1

Differentiated Lesson/Learning Task

Name and Student Number: Michael Ferris (2096044)
Topic of Lesson/Task: February Revolution in Russia (1917)
Curriculum Area: History
Year Level/s: Year 12

This lesson/task is differentiated by:
Readiness
Interest
Learning Profile
Context:
This lesson is planned for the first double lesson of the new school term (Term 2). In the first
term, students in this Year 12 Modern History class studied the first two Key Areas of their
Thematic Study Topic 3: Revolutions and Turmoil: Social and Political Upheavals since c.
1500. This related to the February Revolution in 1917 in Russia, and in particular, considered
the nature of pre-revolutionary society and government, and the role of external and/or
internal forces in the collapse of the old order and in the seizure of power (SACE, 2014). As a
recap of these Key Areas, and in preparation to consider the consolidation of power by the
revolutionaries, this lesson aims to support students in understanding contestability
surrounding the events of the February Revolution (SACE, 2014). The differentiated task will
allow students to complete work based on interest not only in relation to the content, but also
in relation to the mode of work that they complete. Upon completion of this lesson, students will
begin to explore the attempts of the Provisional Government to consolidate power throughout
1917.

Learning Objectives. As a result of participating in the lesson, students will:

Understand that (Concepts, principles, big ideas)

Historical events are contestable.
For any one event in history, there can be a number of conflicting perspectives.


Know (e.g. facts, vocabulary, dates, information)

The Russian system of Tsardom was overthrown in February 1917.
The spontaneous nature of the overthrowing of the Tsar is contested.
Arguments against the spontaneity of the Revolution include the fact that there was no
leadership to lead a revolt, while arguments for it claim that that there was a large groundswell
of revolutionary thought which manifested itself in the overthrow of the Tsar in February 1917.

Be able to (do) (Skills, processes)

Critique primary documents for bias and reliability.
Consider how different individuals would interpret different historical events.
Apply skills of historical inquiry, including critical analysis (IA2, SACE, 2014).


Essential Questions:
How do people write history?
2

What can be gained from the way people record events from the past?


ASSESSMENT TASK:

In this lesson, I have chosen to use a RAFT as a way of formatively assessing
understanding of the key concepts in regards to the nature of contestability of
history, with particular emphasis on the February 1917 Revolution in Russia. This
RAFT has differentiated by learning profile. In the previous week, students
completed an exit card which asked them to consider which learning format they
enjoyed working with the most: speech, letter, news report or argument. This allows
students the choice between presenting orally or through written word. Through this
assessment task, students will be fulfilling the skills that relate to considering how
different individuals interpret different historical events, and applying skills of
historical inquiry. Their choices of the format will determine the role, audience and
topic which they will focus on. Students will write either 500 words or complete a
speech of three minutes in length. Students may negotiate a mix and match
approach to the RAFT, so as to allow students to form their work around their
interests in this topic, but this must be negotiated with the teacher. Possible
variations to the RAFT are recorded below the RAFT itself.



RAFT:

Roles Audience Format Topic
Kerensky Provisional Government members Speech How we will consolidate Provisional Government
Tsar Tsarina Alexandra Letter What went wrong with my leadership?
British
Journalist British public News Report Could this revolution change the war?
Historian Other Historian Academics Argument The February Revolution was spontaneous






Possible variations:

Kerensky Provisional Government members Letter Could this revolution
change the war?

British Journalist British public News Report What went wrong with the Tsars
leadership?

Historian Other Historian Academics Argument Did the revolution change the
war effort?

OR any other variations as verified between the student and the teacher.
3



TASK SHEET:



You are to write a 500 word piece or prepare a three minute speech, based on the
format which has been predetermined by the pre-assessment completed in the
previous lesson. You need to keep in mind the format of your piece of work, and
include certain elements:

Speech:

- Address the crowd
- Persuasive language
- Speak as though speaking to crowd

Letter:

- Use personal language between the author and the recipient
- Emotive language

News Report:

- Small paragraphs
- Key information at the start, less important information further down the
report.
- Use speech if appropriate

Argument:

- Introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion
- Formal language


Your work should incorporate as much as you can of the sources and information
you have read and learnt about by reading the six sources.













4



PRE-ASSESSMENT (completed prior to this lesson):

Students are to complete an exit card:

Which of the following formats of work do you prefer to work with? (Circle those that
apply)

- Newspaper Report
- Speech (delivered verbally, not
written)
- Personal Letter
- Essay-style argument
- Other:______________

LESSON PLAN:


Introduction:

The lesson will begin with students completing a warm-up task by recording
responses to the following questions on an index card:
1. Identify two long-term causes of the February Revolution in 1917.
2. Identify a short-term cause of the February Revolution.
3. Do you think the February Revolution was spontaneous, and why?

This process should take five to ten minutes to allow students to settle into the class.
Once the responses are collected up, this will provide information about student
progress, and will help the teacher in providing scaffolding throughout the main
activities in this lesson.

Main Activities:

1. Students will form their own groups of three or four (there are 19 students in
the class, and six groups would be optimum).
Each group will be given one source on a piece of card. They should read the
source, and then record in their books:
1. The author of the article
2. Year of publication (is this a primary or secondary source?)
3. Describe the content of the source in 2 sentences.
4. What are this sources limitations? How useful is this source?
5. What does this source suggest about the spontaneity of the February
Revolution?

2. Students will have ten minutes on the first source to record their responses. At
the conclusion of these ten minutes, the sources will rotate around the room,
and the same procedure will take place. Students will be working to
demonstrate skills related to critiquing primary documents for reliability and
bias, and so further developing skills of historical inquiry. Once students have
recorded their responses to all six sources (which will take approximately sixty
minutes), they should record their responses into a table:
5



Source Author Year
(primary or
secondary?)
Describe the
content.
Source
Limitations &
Usefulness
Was
Revolution
spontaneous?








3. Once the table has been completed, in their groups, students should come up
with their own conclusion which they will then share with the group. The
teacher will then lead a discussion with the class, recording each groups
conclusion about the spontaneity of the February Revolution on the white
board. Students should be able to identify that even though everyone has
read the same resources, different conclusions have been made. It is
important to note that at this point that the February Revolution is just one of
many events in history that are contested, and it is the students capacity to
analyse sources in the manner that they have today which will be tested when
they complete the source analysis task in the examination at the end of the
year.
6




Checking for Understanding/Lesson Closure:

Students will now see the RAFT placed on the projector, and they will copy the table
into their books.

Based on the pre-assessment task completed in the previous lesson, students will
be grouped based on their response regarding learning profile. In their groups, they
will consider the RAFT, and share in these small groups about how they might
complete their 500 word piece, or their 3 minute speech. The teacher should
explicitly explain how to use the RAFT, explaining all of the information as seen on
page 3 of this assignment. Students may negotiate the roles, audience, and topic if
they choose to with the teacher, but any final choice of RAFT must be verified by the
teacher, and needs to be completed in the format as chosen by the student in the
pre-assessment task in the previous lesson. Time should be given to allow students
to ask questions if necessary.

With any time remaining in the class, students should begin to plan their response,
using their notes on the sources considered in this lesson as a guide.

Marking of the RAFT will be based establish student mastery of the content, and of
the format through which they have chosen to complete. The rubric is available at
the end of this document, and is marked based on a developing, satisfactory, or
well-developed scale.


JUSTIFICATION OF LESSON:

The RAFT strategy is designed to enable students to learn based on readiness,
interest and/or learning profile. RAFT stands for Role, Audience, Format, Topic
(Tomlinson, 2003). I have chosen to use this strategy for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I have sought to differentiate by learning profile. The idea of teaching with
learning profile in mind is based on the idea that people learn more effectively and
efficiently when they can take advantage of their preferred ways of learning
(Tomlinson & Stone, 2009, p. 29). The implication for teachers, then, is that
because students differ in how they learn, teachers will be more effective if they
make provisions for the differences (Tomlinson & Stone, 2009, p. 28). Learning
profiles are fluid, and can change according to the different contexts that students
find themselves. It is important for teachers to be aware of individual learning profiles
in order to help consider students as individuals instead of looking at them as a
pack (Tomlinson & Stone, 2009, p. 32). For me, this particular lesson allows
students to enter into the content in a format that they feel comfortable with, and I
believe that this will enable them to develop a deeper understanding, and create a
deeper analysis of the content. Of course, students should be encouraged to work
with content in a range of different ways, both comfortable and uncomfortable, over
time, but I have decided that it is more important for this class to develop an
awareness of their own preferences, relative strengths and weaknesses as learners,
7

as this will provide me as the teacher a platform from which to plan and organise
learning activities with the students in the future (Jarvis, 2014).

Secondly, adjustments can be made to the RAFT to allow students further
opportunities to work in regards to their interests. By allowing students to make a
choice regarding the entire make-up of their RAFT, the teacher is providing an
alternative way to differentiate. Alternative examples of the RAFT are included on
page 3 of this assignment, Differentiation by interest is important in terms of
increasing motivation, seeking students to apply more energy and enthusiasm to the
task, and this allows students to feel more in control of their learning.

Thirdly, the RAFT demonstrates ways in which that a teacher can activate prior
learning, but also encouraging students to complete work at their own readiness
level. Although not an aspect of this particular lesson, with a pre-assessment task
that sought to understand how much students had understood about the February
Revolution of 1917, by asking them to define three reasons why the February
Revolution occurred, students could have been placed into strips along the RAFT
based on readiness levels. While I may have decided to differentiate this lesson
based on readiness, I have chosen to use this lesson to obtain a gauge on students
learning profiles, to better guide my teaching pedagogy for later in the term. As such,
learning profiles are the basis for differentiation in this lesson.

Finally, RAFTs can be used as a group activity (Jarvis, 2010). Given that students
have worked for the previous hour in a group sense, I believe it is appropriate for
students to now branch off on their own to make sense of the resources they have
read. It may be a point of difference to, after giving some time for students to decide
which RAFT they will complete, group the students based on their format, and allow
them some time to discuss how they would go about writing their five-hundred word
piece. To this end, students are given the opportunity to work collaboratively, before
going on to demonstrate their knowledge and skills individually.


Bibliography:

Jarvis, J. (2010). RAFTs. Class Handout. Accessed 4
th
April 2014.

Jarvis, J. (2014). Differentiating by Interest and Learning Profile. Online Lecture.
Accessed 12
th
April 2014. Available
http://flo.flinders.edu.au/course/view.php?id=19340&section=6.

Morcombe, M & Fielding, M. (1998). The Spirit of Change: Russia in Revolution.
McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., Australia.

SACE Board of SA. (2014). History Subject Outline (for teaching in 2014). Available
[online] http://www.sace.sa.edu.au/web/modern-history/stage-2/planning-to-
teach/subject-outline. Accessed 5
th
April 2014.

Tomlinson, C. (2003). Deciding to teach them all. Educational Leadership. 61 (2),
pp. 6-11.

8

Tomlinson, C. & Stone, J. (2009). Learning Profiles and Achievement. School
Administrator. 66 (2). pp. 28-32, 34.

COPIES OF HANDOUTS:

Source 1: Leon Trotsky asks the question: Who led the February insurrection?

Lawyers and journalists belonging to the classes damaged by the revolution wasted
a good deal of ink subsequently trying to prove that what happened in February was
essentially a petticoat rebellion, backed up afterwards by a solders mutiny and given
out for a revolution. Not the army but the workers began the insurrection; not the
generals but the soldiers came to the State Duma. The soldiers supported the
workers not because they were obediently fulfilling the commands of their officers,
but becausethey felt themselves blood brothers of the workers as a class
composed of toilers like themselves. The peasants and the workers those are the
two social classes which made the Russian revolution
It would be no exaggeration to say that Petrograd achieved the February revolution.
The rest of the country adhered to it. There was no struggle anywhere except in
Petrograd. There were not to be found anywhere in the country any groups of the
population, any parties, institutions, or military units which were ready to put a fight
for the old regime The revolution was carried out upon the initiative and by the
strength of one city, constituting approximately about 1/75
th
of the population of the
country. The February revolution was accomplished by the workers and peasants
the latter in the person of soldiers. But there still remains the great question: Who
led the revolution? Who raised the workers to their feet? Who brought the soldiers
into the streets? After the victory these questions became a subject of party
conflict The mystic doctrine of spontaneousness explains nothing. In every factory,
in every guild, in each company, in each tavern, in the military hospital, at the
transfer stations, even in the depopulated villages, the molecular work of
revolutionary thought was in progress
To the question: Who led the February revolution? We can then answer definitely
enough: Conscious and tempered workers educated for the most party by the party
of Lenin. But we must here immediately add: This leadership proved sufficient to
guarantee the victory of the insurrection, but it was not adequate to transfer
immediately into the hands of the proletarian vanguard the leadership of the
revolution.
9

- Trotsky, Leon, History of the Russian Revolution, translated by Max Eastman,
Victor Gollanz Ltd, London, 1965.
Source 2: A Spontaneous Revolution

The collapse of the Romanov autocracy in March 1917 was one of the most
leaderless, spontaneous, anonymous revolutions of all time. While almost every
thoughtful observer in Russia in the winter of 1916-1917 foresaw the likelihood of the
crash of the existing regime no one, even among the revolutionary leaders, realised
that the strikes and bread riots which broke out in Petrograd on March 8 would
culminate in the mutiny of the garrison and the overthrow of the government four
days later.

Wartime circumstances alone made any effective guidance of a mass uprising
impossible. The men who afterwards distinguished themselves in the Bolshevik
Revolution were either living abroad, like Lenin and Trotsky and Zinoviev, or in
prison or in Siberian exile, like Stalin, Kamenev and DzerzhinskyThere was a
skeleton underground Bolshevik organisation in Russia; but its activities were
narrowly circumscribed by lack of experienced professional revolutionaries, lack of
funds, and the all-pervading espionage. Indeed most of the members of the
Bolshevik Petrograd Party Committee were arrested at a critical moment in the
development of the movement, on the morning of March 11.

There are two features of the March Revolution that strike the observer again and
again. There is the lack of planned leadership, and there is the action of the soldiers
independently of their officers. The latter, with very few exceptions, simply
disappeared during the decisive hours of the uprising. The anonymous host of
workers in collarless blouses and soldiers in grey uniforms overthrew the Romanov
dynasty, with its three centuries of absolute rule behind it. But the rebellious mass
had nothing concrete to put in the place of the old order.


William Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921, Macmillan, 1935.



10




Source 3: Spontaneous Reaction



The February Revolution of 1917 which overthrew the Romanov dynasty was the
spontaneous outbreak of a multitude exasperated by the privatisations of the war
and by manifest inequality in the distribution of burdens.

It was welcomed and utilised by a broad stratum of the bourgeoisie and of the official
class, which had lost confidence in the autocratic system of government and
especially in the persons of the Tsar and of his advisers; it was from this section of
the population that the first Provisional Government was drawn.

The revolutionary parties played no direct part in the making of the revolution. They
did not expect it, and were at first somewhat nonplussed by it.


- Carr, E.H. The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923, Curtis Brown, London, 1973.

























11




Source 4: An Organised Network




The growth of the strike network was not entirely spontaneousStrikes required
organisers who planned strategy, agitators who appealed to the workers, orators
who spoke at factory rallies, and a network of communication that coordinated
activities with other factories.


Although no single political group could claim exclusive leadership of the workers
movement and it is impossible to measure accurately the influence of the
underground revolutionary activities, it is certain that it was the underground activists
at the factory level who provided the workers movement with important leadership
and continuity.


- T. Hasegawa in Suny, R. and Adams, A., The Russian Revolution and
Bolshevik Victory, D.C. Heath and Co., Lexington, 1990.






















12




Source 5: No Leadership


The mass street movement in the February days revealed no sort of
purposefulness, nor was it possible to discern in it any kind of proper leadership.


In general, as is always the case, the organised Socialist centres were not controlling
the popular movement or leading it to any definite political goal.



- N.N. Sukhanov, 1922, a Menshevik in Suny, R. and Adams, A., The Russian
Revolution and Bolshevik Victory, D.C. Heath and Co., Lexington, 1990.





























13




Source 6: Spontaneity A Fallacy

The assumption that there was a particular quality of spontaneity which explains
the scope and strength of the February demonstrations in Petrograd is wholly
gratuitous.

The theory of spontaneity only serves to cover up our ignorance

We know now for certain that from the very beginning of the war the German
government consistently pursued in Russia a Revoliutionierungspolitik, an essential
element of which was the support of an economic strike movement capable, so it
was hoped, of gradually escalating into a political revolution.


- G. Katkov, 1967, a Soviet immigrant who taught at Oxford, UK in Suny, R.
and Adams, A., The Russian Revolution and Bolshevik Victory, D.C. Heath
and Co., Lexington, 1990.






















14




MARKING RUBRIC FOR RAFT:



Criteria for RAFT: Developing Satisfactory Well-developed
Use of historical
analysis to inform
response
There is none to
little analysis
demonstrated in
your response.
Some analysis
made within your
response.
Strong analysis
evident through
your response.
Consideration of
historical
perspectives of the
past
You have made
none to little
connection with
historical
perspectives of the
past.
You have made
some connections
with historical
perspectives of the
past.
You have made
strong connections
with historical
perspectives of the
past.
Correct use of the
format used
communication of
ideas
Correct use of the
format is minimal,
and this has
hampered the
communication of
your ideas.
Correct use of the
format, and this
has enabled the
communication of
your ideas.
Strong use of the
format, and this
has strengthened
the communication
of your ideas.