RHONDA WEBB: Welcome to AP Daily--
Practice Session.
In this video, we will be looking
at the document based question and doing a practice example.
If you want to try to answer the DBQ before I
go over a possible answer, you can
download the documents and the question in the description
below.
Pause the video and then join me when you are ready.
I'm Dr. Rhonda Webb.
And I live in Roswell, Georgia.
And I'm here to help you with the document-based question
for AP US history.
So let's look at this sample.
This was the 2021 a push exam DBQ question.
And look what it says.
Evaluate the extent to which economic growth
led to changes in US society in the period from 1940 to 1970.
The first thing that you want to do
when you are looking at answering a DBQ
is to break down the question.
What is it asking you to do.
So are you-- and it will be one of these reasoning skills
either causation, a comparison, or a continuity,
and change over time.
So in this particular example, we have changes.
Evaluate the extent to which-- which is basically
saying how much did economic growth lead to changes
in society in this time period.
So don't let that phrase evaluate the extent
to which throw you off.
It's just asking how much did this change society.
And so this is going to be a continuity and change over time
question.
And we're looking at the economic growth,
its impact on society, and we have a time period.
So make sure that you are breaking down that question
and knowing exactly what you are being asked to do.
Then I have my students.
As they read the documents, make just a short jot
list in the exam book.
And just list 1 through 7, and then just
make a little phrase or two that reminds them what's
in each of those documents as they read them
because when they go back it's going to help them find
the connections between them to make their claims to write
their thesis.
I'll show you how to do that in just a second.
So if we are looking at this question,
we're not going to read all the documents.
We're going to look at a list of them
that I've already read for you and come up
with a little summary.
So our first one we've got Franklin Roosevelt, his GI
Bill in 1944, right at the close of World War II
is going to describe what educational benefits
and loans he's going to be giving to veterans.
Then there is a property deed, meaning
a document that shows that you own land from Seattle,
Washington in 1947.
But one of the stipulations in this deed
is saying that the land can never
be sold to African-Americans or Asians
as they are in the community or trying
to prevent them from living in this particular neighborhood
of Seattle.
McCall's magazine was a famous woman's magazine at the time,
in 1949.
And an Article in here is having the author
describe all of the new household appliances that
make her life much more manageable
and give her more free time to be able to enjoy
social activities.
We've got an auto ad that's saying don't just buy one car,
it's saying buy two cars.
And explaining why you need to do that for your household.
Then there is an essay called The Organization Man
in the 1950s that's talking about men living in the suburbs
and they're tied to their jobs, and the long hours that they're
working, and that the business is really
the main focus of their family and of their working life.
Then we have the interstate defense highway map.
You may remember Eisenhower and his funding
for all of the interstate highways across the United
States.
And it's showing that we can connect
all of these places that were more isolated from one another.
And now you've got greater opportunity
for movement and migration because of this new highway
system.
And it does show that you've got more highways constructed
and completed in the North and in the East than in the West,
but it does allow for that migration and movement
throughout the country.
And then we have a final newspaper article
that is talking about the Road to Ruin,
and it's talking about new highways being
built through Nashville.
But when the highways are being constructed,
they're going through the African-American community
and destroying their homes and their businesses.
So once we've made our job list, the first thing
that you want to do is start finding connections
between terms.
And when you look at the 7 documents,
typically they're going to fall into a pattern
where you can connect 2, 2, and 3 documents together.
So two documents fit together in some way,
two documents fit together in some way, and three documents
fit together in some way.
And there may be one of the documents that
could fit in a couple of different places
depending on how you approach the question.
So immediately when I look at this list of seven,
I can find two that I know for sure fit together.
And that would be the property deed and the journalist
in Nashville because both of these
are describing discrimination against African-Americans
and groups of populations in society.
So I'm going to wait to try to piece together my answer here
in just a second after I find my other connections.
I think we could also put together
the McCall's magazine and the automobile, and actually
the organization man.
We can fit all of this together about mass consumerism.
We've got all different types of new products
that people are wanting to buy and they're
buying more than they have in the past.
And then that leaves us with the GI Bill and the opportunities
for veterans and then also the highways
that are connecting us.
So how do those fit together?
I think we could put that together as just a general type
of opportunity that people now have new opportunities are
available, whether it's through migration and movement
or whether it's through education.
So now let's go back to the question
and see if we can fit this together into our claims.
Evaluate the extent how much did economic growth lead to changes
in US society.
So I think we can agree that mass consumerism would
be one of those changes that would be very important.
And we would in that body paragraph
put documents 3, 4, and 5 together.
The new opportunities that are available
we would put the GI Bill and the map
together for new opportunities for Americans.
But we've got an exception here.
When we're saying evaluate the extent of change
that economic growth allowed in society,
these two things are saying yes, there's great change.
But there's an exception to this,
and that would be based upon race.
And so during this time period, this
was something that did not change
because of economic growth.
You still have discrimination, that
is a continuity during that time period.
So we have our three categories or three claims.
And so from there we want to plan out and write our thesis
statement.
So we also need to make sure that we plan out
our contextualization.
What was happening prior to the time period in question?
Well, if this is starting with 1940, then if we go back
to the 1930s what was happening related
to economic growth in the 1930s?
Well, there wasn't much economic growth because of the Great
Depression.
That would be something that I would write about
in my introductory paragraph.
Then we want to plan for sourcing.
We know that in the DBQ Rubric you get credit
for adding to your interpretation
of certain documents, and for at least three of those documents,
you want to bring in the historical situation,
the intended audience, the purpose, or the point of view
that can add to your interpretation.
Now, you don't have to do that for all seven documents,
you probably don't have time.
But you want to do that for three to get credit.
I always tell students, if you can provide
sourcing information for 4 and possibly 5, then
that would be building in a little bit of a cushion.
You may have done this in your classes throughout the year
where you're doing either sometimes
it's referred to as HIPP analysis, or HAPP,
or [? HAPPY, ?] all of those skills
are what you would want to do for the sourcing.
And then you want to also plan for outside information.
You get credit for bringing in one extra example that
would fit within one of those body paragraphs that was not
included in a document.
Don't leave this point on the table.
Make sure that you're bringing in that one
piece of information.
Let's look at a student sample, and I know the handwriting here
is a little bit of a challenge, but this
was a student sample who did a good job on this essay.
And I want us to look at this together.
So look what it says.
This is the introductory paragraph.
As Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies
attempted to bring the United States out
of the Great Depression and provide relief
to impoverished Americans, World War II began.
The United States finally joined the war
which led to mass mobilization, production,
and federal spending that immediately brought America out
of the Great Depression.
As the United States emerged from World War II
as a successful world power, its economy
was also booming, allowing Americans
to partake in these economic opportunities.
From 1940 to 1970, although many Americans
were able to experience new economic opportunities
such as mass consumerism and migration
that led to mass culture experienced by them,
minorities such as African-Americans
continued to be discriminated against
and still lacked the opportunities
to experience this.
This is an outstanding introductory paragraph.
We have a really strong use of contextualization
that's explained the time period prior
to the subject of the question.
And we have a great thesis that has the claims of what changed.
But then also what remained the same, the continuity.
We also know exactly what the body paragraphs
are going to be.
The first one is going to be about mass consumerism.
The second one about migration.
And then the third one would be our exception,
which would be the continuity of discrimination.
So we've done a very good job, or this student
has done a very good job in their opening paragraph.
Let's look at their first not a paragraph
about mass production.
So we want to start our paragraph with a good topic
sentence that explains where we're headed,
what are we wanting to prove in this body paragraph.
So this student in their paragraph
says, mass production of goods after World War II
allowed Americans to--
allowed Americans access to new goods
and increased in advanced mass media
resulted in larger spread of these goods.
So we know what they're trying to prove here
in this paragraph.
In document 3, a woman described her new home
with all of the latest gadgets such as the washing machine
that helped her with her work.
These technologies allowed for previously laborious work
to be done more quickly, allotting for more leisure time
as she expresses by talking about her television parties.
The intended audience is other mothers and housewives
who now worked in the home now that their husbands returned
home from the war and began working again.
The magazine itself is an example
of mass cultural experience that led to more women thinking
the same on these matters.
Now a couple of things here.
The first thing I want to draw your attention to,
they start the introduction of the information or the example
within document 3.
In document 4, that's where they're
going to start this in the next statement.
I feel like that makes your essay more about the document
storing rather than your ideas.
And so I want you to use your description of the document,
and then just put in parentheses at the end document 3.
I mean, this is acceptable but I feel
like you get into the possibility of just listing
documents, and that's not really making an argument.
In this case, they've done the argument,
they've made a good argument, but they've just introduced it
in a way that I think could be improved.
So and, again, notice that they didn't quote.
There are no quotes anywhere in this essay
because we want to know your ideas,
your interpretation of those documents.
So they've got a good description of the document.
We know exactly what was in it without ever having
read the article.
They've done some analysis here proving
that this is a change in mass consumerism
because they're saying that what was previously very
laborious work is providing to the work
to be done more quickly.
So this is proving our point.
So we've got our description, we have
our support of the thesis claim, and then
they've also got sourcing.
They've said that the intended audience is other mothers.
Why is that their intended audience?
Because they want more women to start to think the same way.
So they-- and that it's an example of mass culture.
Document 4 it's an advertisement for purchasing cheaper cars
that are greater in quality.
The advertisements intended audience are white middle class
Americans who probably live in the suburbs
by advertising that the people purchasing the car
will fit in with other thousands of Americans who purchased
the cars, people will want to fit in and belong
by also purchasing two cars.
So they've done the same thing here.
They've described what the advertisement looks like.
They're saying why this is an example of mass consumerism.
And then they've targeted this intended audience
and they're saying why.
Why Is this an intended audience,
we'll, they live in the suburbs.
And so that's going to help them to move around and fit
in better and belong with their peers.
The last paragraph that I want to look at we're
going to skip to their final body paragraph
because this is also where they bring in their counterargument
and their outside information.
So we've talked about changes, economic growth
what changes came about.
But now let's look at this.
Minorities were still unable to have access
to all of these new economic opportunities
and continued to be discriminated against.
So this is showing that this isn't a change.
This is a continuity.
And we're going to prove it.
In document 2, the property deed states
that no minorities, such as African or Asian-Americans
would be allowed to own or live on the property.
Also is one of the interstate routes ran right
through an African-American community.
All of the homes and businesses and churches
would be either destroyed or isolated.
And that was in document 7.
This shows-- so here we've got our description.
And then we have our explanation.
This shows how rampant discrimination continued
to be a problem for African-Americans
and other minorities whose whole communities were destroyed.
So they've got our description.
They have their support of their claim.
But look what they do.
They go further and they bring in another example that
is not part of any of the documents
to help prove their claim.
So they're saying, even after the Double V Campaign,
so that's their example but they've got to define it.
It encouraged the African-Americans
to fight in World War II to end racism and fascism.
It would still be a while before the troops
would be desegregated.
Also the television only showed all white middle class culture
on television shows such as the Andy Griffith Show.
So minorities were never able to see themselves
displayed in American culture.
So they've got an extra example.
Well done.
So here's how I want you to approach a DBQ.
Analyze your prompt.
Figure out what it's asking you to do.
You want to make sure that you annotate your documents
and make a plan.
Make your job list, find possible sourcing,
find your groupings.
Put that time in upfront which will make
for a better essay in the end.
Make your strong thesis, which will
allow you to be clear and organized, and then analysis.
Make sure you're explaining how or why all of this evidence
proves your claim.
And then don't forget contextualization
and outside information.
So if you do all of those things,
you're going to make a great essay.
Until next time, keep reading and go make history.