ANSWERING APUSH ESSAY QUESTIONS

1. ANSWERING APUSH ESSAY QUESTIONS

2. Free response essays, in many ways, are the very heart of the AP exam. They measure your reasoning ability as well as your historical knowledge. To succeed with these essays, you must understand the prompts, organize your information, and write a clear and accurate response.

3. Essay Prompt • All college-level essay test answers are written in response to an essay “prompt.” • You mustanswer the question asked in order to score well. • Answering essays is a skill that takes practice.

4. Overview • READ theentire prompt! • Reread & Mark the IMPORTANT WORDS. • Understandyour TASK (question verb). • Define any “loaded” TERMS. • Make aquick OUTLINE. • Cover theentire TIME PERIOD. • Determine your THESIS. • Write your ESSAY, using facts to prove your thesis

5. 1. Read the ENTIRE prompt. • The first mistake that many students make is in reading and answering only part of the prompt.

6. 2.Carefully REREAD the prompt & mark the IMPORTANT WORDS • Verbs, • Conjunctions, and • thetime period

7. 2. Mark the important words • Analyze the impact of the American Revolution on both slavery and the status of women in the period from 1775 to 1800. • Compare and contrast United States foreign policy after the First World War and after the Second World War. Consider the periods 1919-1928 and 1945-1950.

8. 2. Mark the important words • In what ways did the French and Indian War (1754-1763) alter the political, economic and ideological relations between Britain and its American colonies? Use your knowledge of the period 1740-1766 along with the documents provided.

9. 3. Understand the TASK Commonly used verbs and explanations for the tasks they indicate: • Analyze: Explain how AND why something occurred. Any question that uses “how” and/or “why” is an analysis question even if the word “analyze” is not in the prompt. • Discuss or Explain: frequently used in recent prompts. They should be written as analysis essays, not merely a list of events or facts.

10. 3. Understanding the Task: Commonly used verbs and verb phrases • To what extent: How true is some development or description of history? AP essay questions will invariably be about a complex topic that is not completely true or false. • Assess the validity: How true is a given statement? (variant: “Evaluate the validity”)

11. 3. Understanding the Task: Commonly used verbs and verb phrases(cont’d) • Evaluate: Which factor was most important? You usually need to rank several events or factors and specify which is most and which is least significant. • Compare AND contrast: Discuss BOTH similarities AND differences between two events or periods.

12. 4.Define any “loaded” TERMS in the prompt that need clarification Examples: • Assess the validity of the following statement: “Reform movements in the United States sought to expand democratic ideals,” • jot down some “democratic ideals” and be prepared to explain how they are democratic. • “From 1781 to 1789, the Articles of Confederation provided the United States with an effective government.” Using . . . your knowledge of the period, evaluate this statement.

13. 5.BRAINSTORM: sketch out a quick, informal OUTLINE This is crucial in helping you to: • Cover the entire question asked, • Organize your response, and • Include as many important details as possible.

14. Outlines do not have to be formal, just sketch or a structure How did the American Revolution affect American society? Be sure to explain the political, social and economic effects during the period 1775-1800. Political Economic Social

15. 6: Outline • Alternatively: • Compare and contrast United States foreign policy after the First World War and after the Second World War. Consider the periods 1919-1928 and 1945-1950.

16. 6.Cover the TIME PERIOD in the prompt • If the prompt asks you to discuss reform between 1865 and 1900, you must include information for the ENTIRE time period. • Dates included in prompts are not random: test writers put a lot of thought into them

17. 7. Develop your thesis • Historical essays require that you • take a clear position that responds to the prompt (state a thesis) and • defend your thesis with facts. • Thesis: sentence that states a clear position in response to the prompt • Better theses also tell the reader what evidence the essay will prove the thesis is true – they give a brief overview of the essay. • [We will discuss developing a thesis in our next session on answering essays.]

18. 8. Write your essay • 4 -7 well-organized paragraphs, incl’g intro & conclusion • 2-3 lined pages in 35-40 minutes • Write with a goal: Prove and support your thesis using evidence (facts) and explanation (analysis) • Discuss/analyze as many relevant facts as possible • Analysis, analysis, analysis - don’t just list facts/events. You must explain why they are significant and/or how they support your thesis. • Don’t ignore important facts that don’t support your thesis. Acknowledge them & show why they don’t undermine your thesis • In-class essays are a rough draft

19. Summary • READ theENTIRE prompt! • Mark the IMPORTANT WORDS – verbs, conjunctions, time period • Understandyour TASK. What exactly what you are being asked to do?. Consider the entire prompt. • Define any important “loaded” TERM(s). • Make aquickOUTLINE.Organize your thinking before you begin writing. • Cover theentire TIME PERIOD. • Determine your THESIS. • Write your essay, using facts to support your thesis

20. Free response essay prompts put a lot of responsibility on the writer: • Some prompts are very open. Here is an example of this type of prompt: • The government under the Articles of Confederation has been considered a failure. Describe three actions of the Confederation government and explain how these actions may or may not be considered failures.

21. These prompts require you to define the terms, specify the time period, and understand the task. • For instance, read the prompt carefully: • The government under the Articles of Confederation has been considered a failure. Describe three actions of the Confederation government and explain how these actions may or may not be considered failures. • To address the prompt, the following questions must be answered: • What time period does this question address? [1781-1789] • What were 3 (no more) actions of the Confederation Congress that you are going to discuss? • How are you defining “failure” or “success”?

22. Some prompts provide clear time periods to be addressed: • For instance, here are two prompts that specify very clearly the time periods to be discussed: • Compare and contrast United States foreign policy after the First World War and after the Second World War. Consider the periods 1919-1928 and 1945-1950. • How did the African American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s address the failures of Reconstruction?

23. These prompts require you to limit your evidence and to define certain terms. • With the first prompt– • Compare and contrast United States foreign policy after the First World War and after the Second World War. Consider the periods 1919-1928 and 1945-1950. • The following need clarifying • Deal only with foreign policy decisions • You need to pick decisions that are BOTH different and similar between the early and the later time periods.

24. The next prompt– • How did the African American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s address the failures of Reconstruction? • Requires you to specify • Several “failures of Reconstruction” • Which implies that you know when Reconstruction occurred. • And to know several very specific results of the later Civil Rights movement that directly addressed the failures of Reconstruction.

25. Practice Question 1 • Analyze the impact of the American Revolution on both slavery and the status of women in the period from 1775 to 1800.

26. Practice Question 2 • Evaluate the relative importance of the following as factors promoting Americans to rebel: parliamentary taxation, restriction of civil liberties, British military measures and the legacy of colonial religious and political ideas.

27. Practice Question 3 • “The United States Constitution of 1787 represented an economic and ideological victory for the traditional American political elite.” Assess the validity of that statement for the period 1781 to 1789.

28. Practice Question 4 • How did economic, geographic, and social factors encourage the growth of slavery as an important part of the economy of the southern colonies between 1607-1775?

29. An Actual Example • In what ways did the French and Indian War (1754-63) alter the political, economic and ideological relations between Britain and its American colonies? Use your knowledge of the period 1740-1766 along with the documents provided to answer the question.

30. Tip #1 • Make sure you understand exactly your task, what you must “prove” in the essay. • Stay strictly within the time period. Don’t wander. • You must be specific, specific, specific. • Use relevant and time-sensitive PEPS (people, events, places, significance). Think of PEPS as proper nouns (words that need to be capitalized). • Never use generalities, i.e. many reforms, lots of reformers, many things changed.

31. Tip #2 • Organize your thinking BEFORE you write. • This doesn’t need to be a long process • Decide two or three things you need to discuss, • Organize the facts you have under those headings, • Check through them to see that you “balance” the discussion—give each part of the topic equal discussion.

32. Outlines do not have to be formal, just sketch a structure and put your facts into that structure. PEPS PEPS Social PEPS PEPS PEPS PEPS Political PEPS PEPS Economic PEPS PEPS PEPS

33. Write with clarity and confidence– don’t be timid! • Be definite. Your thesis should ANSWER the prompt with your opinion. • Having brainstormed then organized specific facts, start each paragraph with a clear topic sentence. • Refer to specific facts to support your thinking. Stick to your structure, refer to your outline as you write.

34. Good writing is a problem-solving situation. Work the process! • After writing your thesis paragraph, go back and re-read the prompt. • Ask yourself, “Have I ‘answered’ the prompt with my thesis?” • What three or four points MUST you make to support your thesis. Write these down. • As you write, look back at the prompt and at your thesis. Are you sticking to the topic?

35. Plan your time so that you can read your essay before you finish. • Check the clock. Know how much time you have to produce the essay. • Check your thesis and your outline frequently. • Make sure that you have time to go back and read quickly through your essay. • Don’t ignore a conclusion paragraph. Sometimes it makes up for weaknesses earlier in the essay.