French Literacy Dbq
Source: (http://www.fuhsd.net/download.cfm?id=106)
Essay Writing
Document-based question (DBQ) “Levels of Literacy” (60 minutes, 1,000 words minimum)
Task: Describe the variations in the levels of literacy in Old Regime France and trace these variations over time. Analyze the factors that promoted or discouraged the spread of literacy.
Analysis of fourteen documents for the DBQ “Literacy in France” essay question:
Document # 1:
Document # 1 was a comparison of the degree of literacy in France between the seventeenth and late eighteenth century as well as between men and women. During the reign of Louis XIV (1638 – 1715), focusing on the years from 1686 to 1690, merely more than forty percent of the French men were literate in the northern parts of the country (around Paris and toward what today is Belgium), whereas in western, central and southern France fewer than twenty percent of the French male adults could read or write. In northern France only twenty to forty percent of the French women could read or write in that same time frame, whereas fewer than twenty percent of French women were literate in the rest of the country during the days of French Absolutism.
By comparison, during the years from 1786 until 1790, i. e. the years immediately before the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789, levels of literacy had improved significantly throughout France as compared to precisely one hundred years before: More than forty percent of the French males were literate throughout almost all of northern France, the Gironde region as well as between Lyon and Marseille. In the remaining parts of the country, literacy had improved to levels of in between twenty and forty percent. Overall, one may assume that by the time of the French Revolution approximately half of the French men could read and write – in a country in which over eighty percent of the population were peasants. This is a remarkable increase in literacy in a period of one hundred years.
Essay Writing
Document-based question (DBQ) “Levels of Literacy” (60 minutes, 1,000 words minimum)
Task: Describe the variations in the levels of literacy in Old Regime France and trace these variations over time. Analyze the factors that promoted or discouraged the spread of literacy.
Analysis of fourteen documents for the DBQ “Literacy in France” essay question:
Document # 1:
Document # 1 was a comparison of the degree of literacy in France between the seventeenth and late eighteenth century as well as between men and women. During the reign of Louis XIV (1638 – 1715), focusing on the years from 1686 to 1690, merely more than forty percent of the French men were literate in the northern parts of the country (around Paris and toward what today is Belgium), whereas in western, central and southern France fewer than twenty percent of the French male adults could read or write. In northern France only twenty to forty percent of the French women could read or write in that same time frame, whereas fewer than twenty percent of French women were literate in the rest of the country during the days of French Absolutism.
By comparison, during the years from 1786 until 1790, i. e. the years immediately before the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789, levels of literacy had improved significantly throughout France as compared to precisely one hundred years before: More than forty percent of the French males were literate throughout almost all of northern France, the Gironde region as well as between Lyon and Marseille. In the remaining parts of the country, literacy had improved to levels of in between twenty and forty percent. Overall, one may assume that by the time of the French Revolution approximately half of the French men could read and write – in a country in which over eighty percent of the population were peasants. This is a remarkable increase in literacy in a period of one hundred years.