Mastering the DBQ Writing Process for History Essays

1. Focus • What is the difference between a primary and a secondary source? Give an example of each. • What religions/philosophies did we discuss in China and Greece? Be able to explain them. • What was the Civil Service system in China? • Define: Dynasty • What do the letters of GSPRITE stand for?

2. Focus • What is your thesis? • What are your three categories/groupings? • Which documents did you place in your three groupings?

3. DBQ Writing Process

4. Introduction and Thesis • Introduce the topic. • Include some background information. • What was happening before this time period in this place or somewhere else? • Thesis: • What is the question? • Was Asoka an enlightened ruler or ruthless conqueror? • Thesis: • Asoka could be considered an enlightened ruler because ... • Asoka could be considered a ruthless conqueror because

5. Step 3: Thesis Statement • The thesis statement is where you answer the question(s) being asked in the prompt. This is almost always found at the end of the introduction. • Prompt: What is the worst class at PH? Explain your answer. • Example: “Mr. Michel’s history class is the worst at PH for the following reasons: he assigns too many essays, makes terrible puns, and can’t keep track of his mistake count.” • Write your thesis statement on your whiteboard.

6. Body Paragraphs • The purpose of the body paragraphs is to provide evidence to support the claim you made in your thesis. Make sure to include the following: • Topic Sentence: Each paragraph should start with a sentence that is the thesis for that entire paragraph. Any information outside of that should not be included in the paragraph. • Evidence: use the documents to provide your evidence. • Analysis: use your own thoughts to deliberately tie the evidence from the documents to your argument in the thesis.

7. Topic Sentences…Continued! • Topic sentences are basically thesis statements for your body paragraphs. Your topic sentence needs to cover all of the information that you will use as evidence. This means that it needs to be broad enough to include your reasons, but be defined enough so that your reader understands your point. • Example: “Mr. Michel’s class is the worst because he assigns all of the essays, ever. Students are never going to have to write essays ever again in their lives, so they should not have to write them in class. I have had to write so many essays that I have developed a serious case of carpal tunnel. Additionally, Mr. Michel needs to wear a tie. How hard is it to look professional?” • What is good about this? What is poor about this?

8. Documents (writing process) • Follow these steps: • Introduce the document • Who is the author? What is its title or type of document? • Explain the document • What is happening in the document? • Analyze the document (this is super important!) • Break down the document with your own thoughts. How does this document fit into the larger context of history? What is the purpose of this document or why is it important? Explain the author’s point of view. • Compare the document to others. • The documents don’t exist in a vacuum. Consider the other ones, too.

9. Citing the Documents When writing a DBQ, follow a specific formula for citing documents: • Direct Quote: • According to my history teacher, Mr. Michel, “DBQs build character and strong bones” (document A). • Paraphrasing: • According to my history teacher, Michel, DBQs are good for students (document A). • Notice that the parentheses come BEFORE the end punctuation.

10. Remaining items • Point of View (POV) • Consider the author’s context. Who is the author and in what time period does (s)he live? How do these things influence the author and what might his/her purpose be in writing this document? • Contextualization • What happened in the time periods before/after this? Think of it this way: Once upon a time… and then they lived happily ever after.

11. Contextualization • Think of contextualization this way: • You have just started a TV series in the 2nd season. What do you need to know from season 1 to understand it AND what will be happening in the next season(s)? • The intro and conclusion are good places to include this part of the DBQ. Consider what happened before and/or after this time period? For example, what was life like in India before Asoka (intro)? what did humans gain from Asoka (conclusion)?

12. Conclusion • Wrap up your essay in a final paragraph. • Do not simply restate the introduction. • Synthesize your information in the conclusion and include your thesis again. • Include Contextualization here

13. Grammar & Conventions • History happened in the past, so write about it in the past tense. Use that tense for the entirety of your essay. • The exception to this is if you are bringing in a point from modern times, which may or may not be appropriate. • “Mr. Bellinger says to close quotation marks before the citation and to put the period after the parentheses” (Bellinger, 2017).

14. A couple of those writing tips… • Always end a paragraph with your own thoughts. Don’t end it with a quote or a citation or Donald Trump will deport you. • Don’t use “I believe” in your essay. I might believe that I’m a pretty, pretty princess but that doesn’t mean that it’s true. Use some facts.

15. Writing Style • Choppy/Herky jerky. • When writing, you need to find the fine line between sounding conversational or robotic. • Many of you did better about being less colloquial this time around, but some of you took it to the opposite extreme and sounded like robots spewing out facts. • Vary your sentence length and structure so that you don’t sound like a weirdo.

16. Chop Suey! • A made up example: • “Islam began in the Middle East. Muhammad is the founder. I like turtles. Muslims pray five times a day. Islam spread because of conquest, conversions, and economics.”