The Document Based Question

1. The Document Based Question

2. What is a DBQ? The AP exam is broken into two components: • Objective Portion (80 multiple-choice questions) • Written Portion (3 essays) • 2 “free response essays” • 1 “document-based question”

3. What is a DBQ? The DBQ is an essay that contains 10-12 “documents” to be used in drafting the response. The documents include: • Primary source material • Graphs, charts, statistics • Maps

4. How to Write a DBQ Essay Your task as writers is to draft a “unified, coherent essay” that uses both the documents AND your outside knowledge of the period to answer the question.

5. How to Write a DBQ Essay A unified essay: • Has a clear thesis (central argument) that addresses the question asked; • Is organized into body paragraphs that supply specific evidence in support of the thesis. • Coherence: • A topic sentence (which supports the thesis) opens each paragraph; • Each sentence in the paragraph supports the topic…

6. Sample Paragraphs… Courtesy of Mr. Evans: “On the trip from Africa to the Americas, known as the Middle Passage, death rates among slaves ran as high as 20%. Sometimes sharks would follow the slave ships. Once they reached the mainland, slave families were often broken up, never to be reunited. On the trading block, slaves were reduced to the status of chattel. Chattle is a word which means personal property, such as livestock or furniture. Their status as human beings was erased. On the plantation, slaves were often beaten for reasons varying from insubordination to poor work performance.”

7. “On the trip from Africa to the Americas, known as the Middle Passage, death rates among slaves ran as high as 20%. Sometimes sharks would follow the slave ships. Once they reached the mainland, slave families were often broken up, never to be reunited. On the trading block, slaves were reduced to the status of chattel. Chattel is a word which means personal property, such as livestock or furniture. Their status as human beings was erased. On the plantation, slaves were often beaten for reasons varying from insubordination to poor work performance.”

8. “On the trip from Africa to the Americas, known as the Middle Passage, death rates among slaves ran as high as 20%. African captives, picked up from slave trading pens that dotted the coast of west Africa, were tightly packed into the holds of the slave ships where diseases such as dysentery and influenza spread quickly. In addition to illness, dehydration during the long journey led to numerous deaths. Facing an uncertain future, and traumatized by the experience of capture and transport, some slaves took their own lives, although the exact number of slaves who willingly jumped overboard is not known.”

9. Tackling the DBQ • Read the prompt…what does this question want you to address? • What are the parameters of the question? • In what ways (specifics) did • Political, economic, ideological relations • Between England and the Colonies • Change • From 1740-1766 • As a result of the F&I War

10. Tackling the DBQ • Plan a response AS IF THERE WERE NO DOCUMENTS. • What are some key ideas and outside information you will want to include? • Craft a thesis, using the words of the prompt:

11. Sample Thesis “The French and Indian War brought fundamental changes to the economic, political, and ideological relations between Britain and its colonies. Economically, the cost of the war increased Britain’s national debt, which led Britain to attempt to raise revenue in the colonies. This change in the long-standing policy of salutary neglect altered the political relationship between the colonists, as Britain attempted to reorganize and tighten control over the relatively independent provinces. As a result, colonists who were once “proud to be British” began to see themselves as victims of British tyranny, and began to unify in common cause as Americans.

12. The Documents • Documents are there to support your writing. You are not writing about THEM…you are writing about the prompt. • Begin by reviewing the documents. CATEGORIZE and jot down any outside info that can be used along with them. • Always ask: “why is this document included? How does this strengthen or weaken my thesis.”

14. How to use the Documents • Do not DESCRIBE the documents. • BAD: “The French and Indian War resulted in a a tremendous increase in the size of the British American colonies. In Document A, the map shows the colonies in 1754 and again in 1763. In 1763, Britian took control of Canada and Florida and expanded all the way to the Applachians. Also, the map shows that France lost its holdings in North America.”

15. How to use the Documents • GOOD: “The Treaty of Paris and the end of the war meant difference things to the British government and their colonists. For colonists, freed from the French threat on their borders, the end of the war opened vast lands in Ohio which could be settled and developed. (Doc A). For the British government, the doubling in size of their colonial holdings would necessitate a reorganization and a tightening of control.

16. How to use the Documents • Don’t describe or quote documents. • Be sure to use all the documents. • Cite documents using parenthetical notation (Doc A) • You can use more than one. (Doc A & C) • Don’t use them in order!