MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!

Five things you need to know to write the best DBQ for APUSH DBQ WRITING MAXIMUM POINTS 7 55MINUTES 25%

 Write a preliminary thesis…it can change but what is your argument going to be?  Remember to think in terms of Political, Economic, Social and Cultural aspects and include them in your thesis.  You don’t need an intro; it’s not part of the rubric so skip it; all it is fluff and a waste of precious time unless that is where you plan to put your synthesis and/or contextualization. FIRST

 Go through all the Documents and brainstorm what outside information you can remember from each.  Think of any important names, terms, presidents involved, groups involved, supreme court cases, time period affiliated with (does it have a name?),  Then think of what effect it may have had either short term or long term.  Finally write down what that document is essentially saying…in your own words. What is the gist of it in one or two sentences? SECOND

 Now look at all your documents and see how you can group them together…how do some of them match to use towards your thesis (argument)?  Create a quick outline on how your paper will be organized according to that grouping. THIRD

 For the analysis piece you want to take those documents and the statements you made about each and connect how each supports the thesis.  You need to do more than just state what it says  If the two documents discussed how the president was using his executive power to extend American policy overseas than you need to connect how that affected America economically or the people there socially or culturally.  You also need to connect this analysis with that OUTSIDE INFORMATION you found for each document! FOURTH: WRITING YOUR PAPER

 Contextualization: accurately and explicitly connecting historical phenomenal relevant to the argument to a broader historical events and/or processes.  If you included your Economic, Political, Social and Cultural aspects in your essay you covered your Contextualization. (you made your thesis more broad)  Synthesis: response synthesizes argument, evidence, analysis of documents, and context into a coherent and persuasive essay by accomplishing the following:  Extends or modify the stated thesis or argument  Recognizes and effectively accounts for disparate, sometimes contradictory evidence from primary sources and/or secondary works in crafting a coherent argument  Appropriately connects the topic of the question to other historical periods, geographical areas, contexts or circumstances  THIS IS THE EASIEST ONE! DO IT IN THE CONCLUSION FIFTH AND FINAL CONTEXTUALIZATION AND SYNTHESIS

 You should NOT have time at the end of the exam to just sit there. Look at your essays and check to make sure you have all elements included in your essay!  EVERY student that has come back saying they had time at the end had a score of 2 or lower on the AP exam.  Can you think of more outside information to include?  Can you improve your analysis?  I know it is a lot of writing and the exam is 3.5 hours but it is worth college credit…and it looks amazing on your transcripts…make it worth all the work you have done this year and the 3.5 hours you put in this exam to pass!!! THINGS TO REMEMBER