DBQ Review Session

1. DBQ Review Session

2. Agenda: • Review DBQ Rubric • Explain Approach to DBQ • Model DBQ Essay

3. DBQ Rubric http://www.isapwh.com/apwh2apexamresources2009essayquestionsandrubrics.html

4. Approach to the DBQ: • Read and understand prompt. • Read documents and take notes in margins. • Meaning • Underline evidence • Point of View • Additional Document • Outside historical information • Group documents and make quick outline. • Write thesis using groups. • Write essay. • Revise thesis in conclusion

5. DBQ Prompt 2007: 1. Using the documents, analyze Han and Roman attitudes toward technology. Identify one additional type of document and explain briefly how it would help your analysis.

6. Groups: • Documents 1, 6 and 8 reflect what seems to have been a common government, or official, attitude that technology can and should be applied to public works to the benefit of all of society. • Documents 2, 3 and 4 reflect an attitude that values technology primarily for the labor that it saves. • Documents 5 and 7 reflect a negative attitude toward technology associating its creation and use with a lower social status.

7. Thesis Statement: The selection of documents from the ancient Han and Roman Empires reflects three distinct attitudes toward technology, namely, that technology used for public purposes can be very beneficial (Docs. 1, 6 and 8), that technology’s primary benefit is found in the labor it saves (Docs 2, 3 and 4), and finally that technology’s creation and use is closely associated with lower class status and is thus something to disparage (Docs 5 and 7).

8. Possible Expanded Core Thesis Statement: The selection of documents from the ancient Han and Roman Empires reflects three distinct attitudes toward technology, namely, that technology used for public purposes can be very beneficial (Docs. 1, 6 and 8), that technology’s primary benefit is found in the labor it saves (Docs 2, 3 and 4), and finally that technology’s creation and use is closely associated with lower class status and is thus something to disparage (Docs 5 and 7). While all of the documents reflect upper class perspectives on technological innovation, only the last group offers a truly class-based evaluation of technology and ignores its obvious practical dimension.

9. Point of View Analysis: Document 6 was written by the Greek-born Roman citizen Plutarch, who held at least one high official office during his lifetime. It is therefore understandable that in writing about the past Roman political leader, Gaius Gracchus, he focuses on his policies that provided practical benefits to the Roman people, and expresses a most positive view of the road building technology he describes.

10. Point of View Analysis: Seneca, the author of Document 7, is a Roman philosopher and an aristocrat who served as an advisor to the Roman emperor Nero. It is therefore not surprising that a person of such abstract intellectual interests, who was probably most interested in Roman history and political theory, would express a fairly disparaging attitude toward technology. Seneca clearly believes that such practical activities as the creation or use of technology cannot be compared to the more “elevated” considerations of a political philosopher. In this way, the author is demonstrating what was probably a common prejudice of the Roman aristocracy toward lower classes and anything associated with their lives and livelihoods.

11. Additional Document: It would be beneficial to have the budget of the Han imperial government of the 2nd century B.C.E. to see if the great value at least one early Han official (Doc. 1) placed on socially applied technology is reflected in the money the government spent on improving public works through new technology. If the allocation were significant, relative to other spending, then the budget would indicate that the attitude of the official expressed in Document 1 was not only widespread within the Han government but also shared at its highest levels.

12. Additional Document: It would be of great value to have the testimony of a Roman craftsman in some sort of written document, whether it be a letter, journal, or a court document, that expressed his attitude toward technology, and especially whether he agreed with a couple of the Chinese officials who valued technology for the labor it saved. One suspects that the craftsman would, and that he would not share the disparaging attitude towards his occupation expressed by someone like Cicero in Document 5.