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Advanced Placement (AP)

The DBQ, or document-based-question, is a somewhat unusually-formatted timed essay on the AP History Exams: AP US History, AP European History, and AP World History. Because of its unfamiliarity, many students are at a loss as to how to even prepare, let alone how to write a successful DBQ essay on test day.

Never fear! I, the DBQ wizard and master, have a wealth of preparation strategies for you, as well as advice on how to cram everything you need to cover into your limited DBQ writing time on exam day. When you're done reading this guide, you'll know exactly how to write a DBQ.

For a general overview of the DBQ—what it is, its purpose, its format, etc.—see my article "What is a DBQ?"

Table of Contents

What Should My Study Timeline Be?

Preparing for the DBQ

Establish a Baseline

Foundational Skills

Rubric Breakdown

Take Another Practice DBQ

How Can I Succeed on Test Day?

Reading the Question and Documents

Planning Your Essay

Writing Your Essay

Key Takeaways

What Should My DBQ Study Timeline Be?

Your AP exam study timeline depends on a few things. First, how much time you have to study per week, and how many hours you want to study in total? If you don't have much time per week, start a little earlier; if you will be able to devote a substantial amount of time per week (10-15 hours) to prep, you can wait until later in the year.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that the earlier you start studying for your AP test, the less material you will have covered in class. Make sure you continually review older material as the school year goes on to keep things fresh in your mind, but in terms of DBQ prep it probably doesn't make sense to start before February or January at the absolute earliest.

Another factor is how much you need to work on. I recommend you complete a baseline DBQ around early February to see where you need to focus your efforts.

If, for example, you got a six out of seven and missed one point for doing further document analysis, you won't need to spend too much time studying how to write a DBQ. Maybe just do a document analysis exercise every few weeks and check in a couple months later with another timed practice DBQ to make sure you've got it.

However, if you got a two or three out of seven, you'll know you have more work to do, and you'll probably want to devote at least an hour or two every week to honing your skills.

The general flow of your preparation should be: take a practice DBQ, do focused skills practice, take another practice DBQ, do focused skills practice, take another practice DBQ, and so on. How often you take the practice DBQs and how many times you repeat the cycle really depends on how much preparation you need, and how often you want to check your progress. Take practice DBQs often enough that the format stays familiar, but not so much that you've done barely any skills practice in between.

He's ready to start studying!

The general preparation process is to diagnose, practice, test, and repeat. First, you'll figure out what you need to work on by establishing a baseline level for your DBQ skills. Then, you'll practice building skills. Finally, you'll take another DBQ to see how you've improved and what you still need to work on.

In this next section, I'll go over the whole process. First, I'll give guidance on how to establish a baseline. Then I'll go over some basic, foundational essay-writing skills and how to build them. After that I'll break down the DBQ rubric. You'll be acing practice DBQs before you know it!

#1: Establish a Baseline

The first thing you need to do is to establish a baseline— figure out where you are at with respect to your DBQ skills. This will let you know where you need to focus your preparation efforts.

To do this, you will take a timed, practice DBQ and have a trusted teacher or advisor grade it according to the appropriate rubric.

AP US History

For the AP US History DBQ, you'll be given a 15-minute reading period and 45 minutes of writing time.

A selection of practice questions from the exam can be found online at the College Board, including a DBQ. (Go to page 136 in the linked document for the practice prompt.)

If you've already seen this practice question, perhaps in class, you might use the 2015 DBQ question .

Other available College Board DBQs are going to be in the old format (find them in the "Free-Response Questions" documents). This is fine if you need to use them, but be sure to use the new rubric (which is out of seven points, rather than nine) to grade.

I advise you to save all these links , or even download all the Free Response Questions and the Scoring Guides, for reference because you will be using them again and again for practice.

AP European History

The College Board has provided practice questions for the exam , including a DBQ (see page 200 in the linked document).

If you've already seen this question, the only other questions available through the College Board are in the old format, because the 2016 DBQ is in a new, seven-point format identical to the AP US History exam. Just be sure to use the new DBQ rubric if you want to use any of the old prompts provided by the College Board . (DBQs are in the documents titled "Free-Response Questions.")

I advise you to save all these links (or even download all the Free Response Questions and the Scoring Guides) for reference, because you will be using them again and again for practice.

Who knows—maybe this will be one of your documents!

AP World History

For this exam, you'll be given a 15-minute reading period and 45 minutes of writing time . As for the other two history exams, the College Board has provided practice questions . See page 166 for the DBQ.

If you've already seen this question, the only other questions available through the College Board are in the old format, because the 2017 World History DBQ is in a new, seven-point format identical to the AP US History and AP European History exams. So be sure to use the new DBQ rubric if you want to use any of the old prompts provided by the College Board . (DBQs are in the documents titled "Free-Response Questions.")

Finding a Trusted Advisor to Look at Your Papers

A history teacher would be a great resource, but if they are not available to you in this capacity, here are some other ideas:

• An English teacher.
• Ask a librarian at your school or public library! If they can't help you, they may be able to direct you to resources who can.
• You could also ask a school guidance counselor to direct you to in-school resources you could use.
• A tutor. This is especially helpful if they are familiar with the test, although even if they aren't, they can still advise—the DBQ is mostly testing academic writing skills under pressure.
• Your parent(s)! Again, ideally your trusted advisor will be familiar with the AP, but if you have used your parents for writing help in the past they can also assist here.
• You might try an older friend who has already taken the exam and did well...although bear in mind that some people are better at doing than scoring and/or explaining!

Can I Prepare For My Baseline?

If you know nothing about the DBQ and you'd like to do a little basic familiarization before you establish your baseline, that's completely fine. There's no point in taking a practice exam if you are going to panic and muddle your way through it; it won't give a useful picture of your skills.

For a basic orientation, check out my article for a basic introduction to the DBQ including DBQ format.

If you want to look at one or two sample essays, see my article for a list of DBQ example essay resources . Keep in mind that you should use a fresh prompt you haven't seen to establish your baseline, though, so if you do look at samples don't use those prompts to set your baseline.

I would also check out this page about the various "task" words associated with AP essay questions . This page was created primarily for the AP European History Long Essay question, but the definitions are still useful for the DBQ on all the history exams, particularly since these are the definitions provided by the College Board.

Once you feel oriented, take your practice exam!

Don't worry if you don't do well on your first practice! That's what studying is for. The point of establishing a baseline is not to make you feel bad, but to empower you to focus your efforts on the areas you need to work on. Even if you need to work on all the areas, that is completely fine and doable! Every skill you need for the DBQ can be built .

In the following section, we'll go over these skills and how to build them for each exam.

You need a stronger foundation than this sand castle.

#2: Develop Foundational Skills

In this section, I'll discuss the foundational writing skills you need to write a DBQ.

I'll start with some general information on crafting an effective thesis , since this is a skill you will need for any DBQ exam (and for your entire academic life). Then, I'll go over outlining essays, with some sample outline ideas for the DBQ. After I'll touch on time management. Finally, I'll briefly discuss how to non-awkwardly integrate information from your documents into your writing.

It sounds like a lot, but not only are these skills vital to your academic career in general, you probably already have the basic building blocks to master them in your arsenal!

Writing An Effective Thesis

Writing a good thesis is a skill you will need to develop for all your DBQs, and for any essay you write, on the AP or otherwise.

Here are some general rules as to what makes a good thesis:

A good thesis does more than just restate the prompt.

Let's say our class prompt is: "Analyze the primary factors that led to the French Revolution."

Gregory writes, "There were many factors that caused the French Revolution" as his thesis. This is not an effective thesis. All it does is vaguely restate the prompt.

A good thesis makes a plausible claim that you can defend in an essay-length piece of writing.

Maybe Karen writes, "Marie Antoinette caused the French Revolution when she said ‘Let them eat cake' because it made people mad."

This is not an effective thesis, either. For one thing, Marie Antoinette never said that. More importantly, how are you going to write an entire essay on how one offhand comment by Marie Antoinette caused the entire Revolution? This is both implausible and overly simplistic.

A good thesis answers the question .

If LaToya writes, "The Reign of Terror led to the ultimate demise of the French Revolution and ultimately paved the way for Napoleon Bonaparte to seize control of France," she may be making a reasonable, defensible claim, but it doesn't answer the question, which is not about what happened after the Revolution, but what caused it!

A good thesis makes it clear where you are going in your essay.

Let's say Juan writes, "The French Revolution, while caused by a variety of political, social, and economic factors, was primarily incited by the emergence of the highly educated Bourgeois class." This thesis provides a mini-roadmap for the entire essay, laying out that Juan is going to discuss the political, social, and economic factors that led to the Revolution, in that order, and that he will argue that the members of the Bourgeois class were the ultimate inciters of the Revolution.

This is a great thesis! It answers the question, makes an overarching point, and provides a clear idea of what the writer is going to discuss in the essay.

To review: a good thesis makes a claim, responds to the prompt, and lays out what you will discuss in your essay.

If you feel like you have trouble telling the difference between a good thesis and a not-so-good one, here are a few resources you can consult:

This site from SUNY Empire has an exercise in choosing the best thesis from several options. It's meant for research papers, but the general rules as to what makes a good thesis apply.

About.com has another exercise in choosing thesis statements specifically for short essays. Note, however, that most of the correct answers here would be "good" thesis statements as opposed to "super" thesis statements.

• This guide from the University of Iowa provides some really helpful tips on writing a thesis for a history paper.

So how do you practice your thesis statement skills for the DBQ?

While you should definitely practice looking at DBQ questions and documents and writing a thesis in response to those, you may also find it useful to write some practice thesis statements in response to the Free-Response Questions. While you won't be taking any documents into account in your argument for the Free-Response Questions, it's good practice on how to construct an effective thesis in general.

You could even try writing multiple thesis statements in response to the same prompt! It is a great exercise to see how you could approach the prompt from different angles. Time yourself for 5-10 minutes to mimic the time pressure of the AP exam.

If possible, have a trusted advisor or friend look over your practice statements and give you feedback. Barring that, looking over the scoring guidelines for old prompts (accessible from the same page on the College Board where past free-response questions can be found) will provide you with useful tips on what might make a good thesis in response to a given prompt.

Once you can write a thesis, you need to be able to support it—that's where outlining comes in!

This is not a good outline.

Outlining and Formatting Your Essay

You may be the greatest document analyst and thesis-writer in the world, but if you don't know how to put it all together in a DBQ essay outline, you won't be able to write a cohesive, high-scoring essay on test day.

A good outline will clearly lay out your thesis and how you are going to support that thesis in your body paragraphs. It will keep your writing organized and prevent you from forgetting anything you want to mention!

For some general tips on writing outlines, this page from Roane State has some useful information. While the general principles of outlining an essay hold, the DBQ format is going to have its own unique outlining considerations.To that end, I've provided some brief sample outlines that will help you hit all the important points.

Sample DBQ Outline

• Introduction
• Thesis. The most important part of your intro!
• Body 1 - contextual information
• Any outside historical/contextual information
• Body 2 - First point
• Documents & analysis that support the first point
• If three body paragraphs: use about three documents, do deeper analysis on two
• Body 3 - Second point
• Documents & analysis that support the second point
• Use about three documents, do deeper analysis on two
• Be sure to mention your outside example if you have not done so yet!
• Body 4 (optional) - Third point
• Documents and analysis that support third point
• Re-state thesis
• Draw a comparison to another time period or situation (synthesis)

Depending on your number of body paragraphs and your main points, you may include different numbers of documents in each paragraph, or switch around where you place your contextual information, your outside example, or your synthesis.

There's no one right way to outline, just so long as each of your body paragraphs has a clear point that you support with documents, and you remember to do a deeper analysis on four documents, bring in outside historical information, and make a comparison to another historical situation or time (you will see these last points further explained in the rubric breakdown).

Of course, all the organizational skills in the world won't help you if you can't write your entire essay in the time allotted. The next section will cover time management skills.

You can be as organized as this library!

Time Management Skills for Essay Writing

Do you know all of your essay-writing skills, but just can't get a DBQ essay together in a 15-minute planning period and 40 minutes of writing?

There could be a few things at play here:

Do you find yourself spending a lot of time staring at a blank paper?

If you feel like you don't know where to start, spend one-two minutes brainstorming as soon as you read the question and the documents. Write anything here—don't censor yourself. No one will look at those notes but you!

After you've brainstormed for a bit, try to organize those thoughts into a thesis, and then into body paragraphs. It's better to start working and change things around than to waste time agonizing that you don't know the perfect thing to say.

Are you too anxious to start writing, or does anxiety distract you in the middle of your writing time? Do you just feel overwhelmed?

Sounds like test anxiety. Lots of people have this. (Including me! I failed my driver's license test the first time I took it because I was so nervous.)

You might talk to a guidance counselor about your anxiety. They will be able to provide advice and direct you to resources you can use.

There are also some valuable test anxiety resources online: try our guide to mindfulness (it's focused on the SAT, but the same concepts apply on any high-pressure test) and check out tips from Minnesota State University , these strategies from TeensHealth , or this plan for reducing anxiety from West Virginia University.

Are you only two thirds of the way through your essay when 40 minutes have passed?

You are probably spending too long on your outline, biting off more than you can chew, or both.

If you find yourself spending 20+ minutes outlining, you need to practice bringing down your outline time. Remember, an outline is just a guide for your essay—it is fine to switch things around as you are writing. It doesn't need to be perfect. To cut down on your outline time, practice just outlining for shorter and shorter time intervals. When you can write one in 20 minutes, bring it down to 18, then down to 16.

You may also be trying to cover too much in your paper. If you have five body paragraphs, you need to scale things back to three. If you are spending twenty minutes writing two paragraphs of contextual information, you need to trim it down to a few relevant sentences. Be mindful of where you are spending a lot of time, and target those areas.

You don't know the problem —you just can't get it done!

If you can't exactly pinpoint what's taking you so long, I advise you to simply practice writing DBQs in less and less time. Start with 20 minutes for your outline and 50 for your essay, (or longer, if you need). Then when you can do it in 20 and 50, move back to 18 minutes and 45 for writing, then to 15 and 40.

You absolutely can learn to manage your time effectively so that you can write a great DBQ in the time allotted. On to the next skill!

Integrating Citations

The final skill that isn't explicitly covered in the rubric, but will make a big difference in your essay quality, is integrating document citations into your essay. In other words, how do you reference the information in the documents in a clear, non-awkward way?

It is usually better to use the author or title of the document to identify a document instead of writing "Document A." So instead of writing "Document A describes the riot as...," you might say, "In Sven Svenson's description of the riot…"

When you quote a document directly without otherwise identifying it, you may want to include a parenthetical citation. For example, you might write, "The strikers were described as ‘valiant and true' by the working class citizens of the city (Document E)."

Now that we've reviewed the essential, foundational skills of the DBQ, I'll move into the rubric breakdowns. We'll discuss each skill the AP graders will be looking for when they score your exam. All of the history exams share a DBQ rubric, so the guidelines are identical.

Don't worry, you won't need a magnifying glass to examine the rubric.

#3: Learn the DBQ Rubric

The DBQ rubric has four sections for a total of seven points.

Part A: Thesis - 2 Points

One point is for having a thesis that works and is historically defensible. This just means that your thesis can be reasonably supported by the documents and historical fact. So please don't make the main point of your essay that JFK was a member of the Illuminati or that Pope Urban II was an alien.

Per the College Board, your thesis needs to be located in your introduction or your conclusion. You've probably been taught to place your thesis in your intro, so stick with what you're used to. Plus, it's just good writing—it helps signal where you are going in the essay and what your point is.

You can receive another point for having a super thesis.

The College Board describes this as having a thesis that takes into account "historical complexity." Historical complexity is really just the idea that historical evidence does not always agree about everything, and that there are reasons for agreement, disagreement, etc.

How will you know whether the historical evidence agrees or disagrees? The documents! Suppose you are responding to a prompt about women's suffrage (suffrage is the right to vote, for those of you who haven't gotten to that unit in class yet):

"Analyze the responses to the women's suffrage movement in the United States."

Included among your documents, you have a letter from a suffragette passionately explaining why she feels women should have the vote, a copy of a suffragette's speech at a women's meeting, a letter from one congressman to another debating the pros and cons of suffrage, and a political cartoon displaying the death of society and the end of the ‘natural' order at the hands of female voters.

A simple but effective thesis might be something like,

"Though ultimately successful, the women's suffrage movement sharply divided the country between those who believed women's suffrage was unnatural and those who believed it was an inherent right of women."

This is good: it answers the question and clearly states the two responses to suffrage that are going to be analyzed in the essay.

A super thesis , however, would take the relationships between the documents (and the people behind the documents!) into account.

It might be something like,

"The dramatic contrast between those who responded in favor of women's suffrage and those who fought against it revealed a fundamental rift in American society centered on the role of women—whether women were ‘naturally' meant to be socially and civilly subordinate to men, or whether they were in fact equals."

This is a "super" thesis because it gets into the specifics of the relationship between historical factors and shows the broader picture —that is, what responses to women's suffrage revealed about the role of women in the United States overall.

It goes beyond just analyzing the specific issues to a "so what"? It doesn't just take a position about history, it tells the reader why they should care . In this case, our super thesis tells us that the reader should care about women's suffrage because the issue reveals a fundamental conflict in America over the position of women in society.

Part B: Document Analysis - 2 Points

One point for using six or seven of the documents in your essay to support your argument. Easy-peasy! However, make sure you aren't just summarizing documents in a list, but are tying them back to the main points of your paragraphs.

It's best to avoid writing things like, "Document A says X, and Document B says Y, and Document C says Z." Instead, you might write something like, "The anonymous author of Document C expresses his support and admiration for the suffragettes but also expresses fear that giving women the right to vote will lead to conflict in the home, highlighting the common fear that women's suffrage would lead to upheaval in women's traditional role in society."

Any summarizing should be connected a point. Essentially, any explanation of what a document says needs to be tied to a "so what?" If it's not clear to you why what you are writing about a document is related to your main point, it's not going to be clear to the AP grader.

You can get an additional point here for doing further analysis on 4 of the documents. This further analysis could be in any of these 4 areas:

Author's point of view - Why does the author think the way that they do? What is their position in society and how does this influence what they are saying?

Author's purpose - Why is the author writing what they are writing? What are they trying to convince their audience of?

Historical context - What broader historical facts are relevant to this document?

Audience - Who is the intended audience for this document? Who is the author addressing or trying to convince?

Be sure to tie any further analysis back to your main argument! And remember, you only have to do this for four documents for full credit, but it's fine to do it for more if you can.

Practicing Document Analysis

So how do you practice document analysis? By analyzing documents!

Luckily for AP test takers everywhere, New York State has an exam called the Regents Exam that has its own DBQ section. Before they write the essay, however, New York students have to answer short answer questions about the documents.

Answering Regents exam DBQ short-answer questions is good practice for basic document analysis. While most of the questions are pretty basic, it's a good warm-up in terms of thinking more deeply about the documents and how to use them. This set of Regent-style DBQs from the Teacher's Project are mostly about US History, but the practice could be good for other tests too.

This prompt from the Morningside center also has some good document comprehensions questions about a US-History based prompt.

Note: While the document short-answer questions are useful for thinking about basic document analysis, I wouldn't advise completing entire Regents exam DBQ essay prompts for practice, because the format and rubric are both somewhat different from the AP.

Your AP history textbook may also have documents with questions that you can use to practice. Flip around in there!

This otter is ready to swim in the waters of the DBQ.

When you want to do a deeper dive on the documents, you can also pull out those old College Board DBQ prompts.

Read the documents carefully. Write down everything that comes to your attention. Do further analysis—author's point of view, purpose, audience, and historical context—on all the documents for practice, even though you will only need to do additional analysis on four on test day. Of course, you might not be able to do all kinds of further analysis on things like maps and graphs, which is fine.

You might also try thinking about how you would arrange those observations in an argument, or even try writing a practice outline! This exercise would combine your thesis and document-analysis skills practice.

When you've analyzed everything you can possibly think of for all the documents, pull up the Scoring Guide for that prompt. It helpfully has an entire list of analysis points for each document.

Consider what they identified that you missed.

Do you seem way off-base in your interpretation? If so, how did it happen?

Part C: Using Evidence Beyond the Documents - 2 Points

Don't be freaked out by the fact that this is two points!

One point is just for context—if you can locate the issue within its broader historical situation. You do need to write several sentences to a paragraph about it, but don't stress; all you really need to know to be able to get this point is information about major historical trends over time, and you will need to know this anyways for the multiple choice section. If the question is about the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, for example, be sure to include some of the general information you know about the Great Depression! Boom. Contextualized.

The other point is for naming a specific, relevant example in your essay that does not appear in the documents.

To practice your outside information skills, pull up your College Board prompts!

Read through the prompt and documents and then write down all of the contextualizing facts and as many specific examples as you can think of.

I advise timing yourself—maybe 5-10 minutes to read the documents and prompt and list your outside knowledge—to imitate the time pressure of the DBQ.

When you've exhausted your knowledge, make sure to fact-check your examples and your contextual information! You don't want to use incorrect information on test day.

If you can't remember any examples or contextual information about that topic, look some up! This will help fill in holes in your knowledge.

Part D: Synthesis - 1 Point

All you need to do for synthesis is relate your argument about this specific time period to a different time period, geographical area, historical movement, etc. It is probably easiest to do this in the conclusion of the essay. If your essay is about the Great Depression, you might relate it to the Great Recession of 2007-2009.

You do need to do more than just mention your synthesis connection. You need to make it meaningful. How are the two things you are comparing similar? What does one reveal about the other? Is there a key difference that highlights something important?

To practice your synthesis skills—you guessed it—pull up your College Board prompts!

• Read through the prompt and documents and then identify what historical connections you could make for your synthesis point. Be sure to write a few words on why the connection is significant!
• A great way to make sure that your synthesis connection makes sense is to explain it to someone else. If you explain what you think the connection is and they get it, you're probably on the right track.
• You can also look at sample responses and the scoring guide for the old prompts to see what other connections students and AP graders made.

That's a wrap on the rubric! Let's move on to skill-building strategy.

I know you're tired, but you can do it!

#5: Take Another Practice DBQ

So, you established a baseline, identified the skills you need to work on, and practiced writing a thesis statement and analyzing documents for hours. What now?

Take another timed, practice DBQ from a prompt you haven't seen before to check how you've improved. Recruit your same trusted advisor to grade your exam and give feedback. After, work on any skills that still need to be honed.

Repeat this process as necessary, until you are consistently scoring your goal score. Then you just need to make sure you maintain your skills until test day by doing an occasional practice DBQ.

Eventually, test day will come—read on for my DBQ-test-taking tips.

How Can I Succeed On DBQ Test Day?

Once you've prepped your brains out, you still have to take the test! I know, I know. But I've got some advice on how to make sure all of your hard work pays off on test day—both some general tips and some specific advice on how to write a DBQ.

#1: General Test-Taking Tips

Most of these are probably tips you've heard before, but they bear repeating:

Get a good night's sleep for the two nights preceding the exam. This will keep your memory sharp!

Eat a good breakfast (and lunch, if the exam is in the afternoon) before the exam with protein and whole grains. This will keep your blood sugar from crashing and making you tired during the exam.

Don't study the night before the exam if you can help it. Instead, do something relaxing. You've been preparing, and you will have an easier time on exam day if you aren't stressed from trying to cram the night before.

This dude knows he needs to get a good night's rest!

#2: DBQ Plan and Strategies

Below I've laid out how to use your time during the DBQ exam. I'll provide tips on reading the question and docs, planning your essay, and writing!

Be sure to keep an eye on the clock throughout so you can track your general progress.

Reading the Question and the Documents: 5-6 min

First thing's first: r ead the question carefully , two or even three times. You may want to circle the task words ("analyze," "describe," "evaluate," "compare") to make sure they stand out.

You could also quickly jot down some contextual information you already know before moving on to the documents, but if you can't remember any right then, move on to the docs and let them jog your memory.

It's fine to have a general idea of a thesis after you read the question, but if you don't, move on to the docs and let them guide you in the right direction.

Next, move on to the documents. Mark them as you read—circle things that seem important, jot thoughts and notes in the margins.

After you've passed over the documents once, you should choose the four documents you are going to analyze more deeply and read them again. You probably won't be analyzing the author's purpose for sources like maps and charts. Good choices are documents in which the author's social or political position and stake in the issue at hand are clear.

Get ready to go down the document rabbit hole.

Planning Your Essay: 9-11 min

Once you've read the question and you have preliminary notes on the documents, it's time to start working on a thesis. If you still aren't sure what to talk about, spend a minute or so brainstorming. Write down themes and concepts that seem important and create a thesis from those. Remember, your thesis needs to answer the question and make a claim!

When you've got a thesis, it's time to work on an outline . Once you've got some appropriate topics for your body paragraphs, use your notes on the documents to populate your outline. Which documents support which ideas? You don't need to use every little thought you had about the document when you read it, but you should be sure to use every document.

Here's three things to make sure of:

Make sure your outline notes where you are going to include your contextual information (often placed in the first body paragraph, but this is up to you), your specific example (likely in one of the body paragraphs), and your synthesis (the conclusion is a good place for this).

Make sure you've also integrated the four documents you are going to further analyze and how to analyze them.

Make sure you use all the documents! I can't stress this enough. Take a quick pass over your outline and the docs and make sure all of the docs appear in your outline.

If you go over the planning time a couple of minutes, it's not the end of the world. This probably just means you have a really thorough outline! But be ready to write pretty fast.

Writing the Essay - 45 min

If you have a good outline, the hard part is out of the way! You just need to make sure you get all of your great ideas down in the test booklet.

Don't get too bogged down in writing a super-exciting introduction. You won't get points for it, so trying to be fancy will just waste time. Spend maybe one or two sentences introducing the issue, then get right to your thesis.

For your body paragraphs, make sure your topic sentences clearly state the point of the paragraph . Then you can get right into your evidence and your document analysis.

As you write, make sure to keep an eye on the time. You want to be a little more than halfway through at the 20-minute mark of the writing period, so you have a couple minutes to go back and edit your essay at the end.

Keep in mind that it's more important to clearly lay out your argument than to use flowery language. Sentences that are shorter and to the point are completely fine.

If you are short on time, the conclusion is the least important part of your essay . Even just one sentence to wrap things up is fine just so long as you've hit all the points you need to (i.e. don't skip your conclusion if you still need to put in your synthesis example).

When you are done, make one last past through your essay. Make sure you included everything that was in your outline and hit all the rubric skills! Then take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back.

You did it!! Have a cupcake to celebrate.

Key Tips for How to Write a DBQ

I realize I've bombarded you with information, so here are the key points to take away:

Remember the drill for prep: establish a baseline, build skills, take another practice DBQ, repeat skill-building as necessary.

Make sure that you know the rubric inside and out so you will remember to hit all the necessary points on test day! It's easy to lose points just for forgetting something like your synthesis point.

On test day, keep yourself on track time-wise !

This may seem like a lot, but you can learn how to ace your DBQ! With a combination of preparation and good test-taking strategy, you will get the score you're aiming for. The more you practice, the more natural it will seem, until every DBQ is a breeze.

What's Next?

If you want more information about the DBQ, see my introductory guide to the DBQ .

Haven't registered for your AP test yet? See our article for help registering for AP exams .

For more on studying for the AP US History exam, check out the best AP US History notes to study with .

Studying for World History? See these AP World History study tips from one of our experts.

Ellen has extensive education mentorship experience and is deeply committed to helping students succeed in all areas of life. She received a BA from Harvard in Folklore and Mythology and is currently pursuing graduate studies at Columbia University.

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The Power of Propaganda: A Student-Designed DBQ

I’ve asked them to reflect on the assignment and invited them to guest post on my blog. Here is The Power of Propaganda designed by Kyle Stephens.

You can find Kyle’s posts on our class blog.

See Kyle’s chapter in our class-designed iBook – free at iTunes.

Kyle Stephens reflects on what he learned from the experience:

I wanted to somehow link the idea of propaganda to today’s society and challenge the students to think about how propaganda may be used today.

When I started my DBQ project I wanted to show how propaganda was used throughout history and see how propaganda evolved throughout the years. However, I decided to focus my attention at WWII and the Cold War Era. I was able to find some great documents showing the propaganda used during that time. I wanted to somehow link the idea of propaganda to today’s society and challenge the students to think about how propaganda may be used today. However, I didn’t come up with a great way to do that without making the project much larger in scope.  I think I should have focused my attention to either WWII or the Cold War exclusively. I think I would have been able to dive in deeper with one of them, rather than trying to span over a long time and different conflicts. However, this DBQ could be used to try to connect the two events and show how propaganda played a part in both of these.

Image credit The White-Haired Girl: Chinese film poster (1950) British Library  

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Preserving american freedom dbq guide.

Document Type

Document Based Question (DBQ) Development Guide

The “Preserving American Freedom”  website includes fifty of the treasured documents within the vast catalog of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.  All of these documents are digitized with transcriptions and annotations, as well as with other user-friendly elements, that will help both teachers and students create their own Document-Based-Question (DBQ). The DBQ is an instrumental component to all Advanced Placement history courses (U.S., European, and World).  A DBQ measures a student’s ability to analyze, synthesize, and compose an essay based on a series of edited documents and their historical knowledge. The creation of a DBQ challenges either the teacher or student formulating the DBQ to take on the roll of the historian and pose big questions that will be answered using the documents selected. Within the “Preserving American Freedom” project, HSP provides two DBQs and a clear guide to the creating your own original DBQ based on the documents.   

The two DBQs accompanying this guide serve primarily as assignments and templates for creating your own DBQ. Teachers may edit the provided DBQs to meet curriculum needs or the requirements of their individual courses. The Abolitionist DBQ is generated from a specific section, “Negotiating Freedom in the New Republic,” using only the documents in this section pertaining to the Abolitionist Movement (leaving out two documents on different subjects). The Declaration of Independence: The Struggle for Equality DBQ examines the concept of equality throughout our history. The second DBQ illustrates how multiple sections of “Preserving American Freedom” can be used to select specific documents addressing the concept of equality from 1776 to 1968. 

 The “Preserving American Freedom” project is divided into seven topical sections covering various aspects of freedom, obtained and denied, in the United States from 1655-1978. Documents are arranged chronologically in each section and can easily serve as a companion piece to any textbook. Also, each section includes a contextual essay written by an eminent historian that may also serve as a developmental tool to provide the needed outside knowledge required in a successful DBQ. The goal of HSP is to allow all students and teachers the ability to succeed with primary sources.

DBQ Construction

• Determine what period, theme, or concept of United States History you would like to explore in creating your own original DBQ.

For example, the concept of equality can be used to illustrate knowledge gained over a semester or the abolitionist theme may be tailored to a certain chapter in the textbook.

• Determine the focus of the DBQ you wish to create. DBQ’s do not have to be limited to advance placement or honor courses. DBQ’s can reinforce similarities (compare), differences (contrasting), change and continuity (trace), and a variety of other learning tasks.   

• Select the specific section or sections of the “Preserving American Freedom” project that best addresses the period, theme, or concept you have decided upon. For example, the concept of equality will use multiple documents from most sections and the abolitionist theme will concentrate on section three, “Negotiating Freedom in the New Republic.”

• Develop the question for your DBQ. A good question will challenge the students to combine their knowledge of the documents and outside sources in their essay.

Concentrate on the words used when developing a question. Refer to your state’s department of education standards , Bloom’s Taxonomy , or your department chair / supervisor – if needed.

• Determine how many documents will be used in creating an original DBQ, most teachers recommend between 6-9 documents in a DBQ.

For example, the concept of equality incorporates nine documents from sections two through seven and the abolitionist theme uses seven documents all from section three.

• Thoroughly read all the documents selected in order to edit the significant segments of each document to be used in the DBQ. The document segments selected should be relevant to the question and reinforce the material covered in the course. When editing, also keep in mind time restrictions; students should complete the entire DBQ in approximately a class period or hour.

Please refer to the provided DBQ samples and compare them with the original documents within “Preserving American Freedom.”

• In constructing your own DBQ, use the two HSP-provided DBQ’s as a template. Make sure to include your directions, clarifying expectations, and the question at the top of the page. Below the question, list the edited documents (include the document title, author, year – as the source) in a logical order that will help the student best answer the question. You may consider labeling each document by a sequence of letters. Below is also a sample of how to begin your DBQ.

For example,

Directions: The following question requires that all students compose an essay based on the documents below and knowledge obtained through various sources.

Question: To what extent did the Declaration of Independence inspire future generations of Americans? Analyze the petitions of various Americans in the struggle to gain equality.

Source: Thomas Jefferson,  A Declaration By The Representatives Of The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN GENERAL CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, July, 4, 1776

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, "that all Men are created equal," "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,"…  

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use?

Oct 29, 2019

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Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use?. Document Based Question 1 st Quarter Civics. Essential Question: Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would you Use? You will be analyzing documents A-F to answer the analytical essential question above.

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• plain folks
• coat tailing
• eisenhower ad
• plain folks appeal
• plain folks regular citizens

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Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? Document Based Question 1st Quarter Civics

Essential Question: • Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would you Use? • You will be analyzing documents A-F to answer the analytical essential question above. • To analyze the documents you will be using document analysis sheets. • Each time you read and review a document you must think about the essential question. • The essential question will be answered in the form of an essay. Document G: Bandwagon

Instructions: • Examine each button closely. • Look at pictures & words. • Look facial expressions& symbols to make observations. • Next, what inferences can you make based on your observations?

Sample answers!!!!

7 1 12 16 8 2 13 3 14 9 15 5 4 10 • Read the document as I read aloud. Text Code the document by: • Number the paragraphs • Highlight vocabulary & types of propaganda strategies with definitions as we read whole group. • Circle word or phrases you need clarified (don’t know or understand). 6 11

Answer questions # 1-8 Background Essay Questions on pg. 391 of your DBQ packet. • Add the word strategy to question #8 X X X Add: strategies

Background Essay Answers #’s 1-8 Society’s goal is to inform voters so they can make inform decisions. A candidates goal is to win votes. • What is society’s goal for political campaigns? What is a candidates goal? Can both of these goals be achieved? • What is the similarity between advertising and campaign propaganda? • How does the “stacking the deck” strategy help a candidate? • How might “glittering generalities” help a candidate? Both are trying to sell a product, in advertising the product is a good versus a campaign where it is a candidate. Stacking the deck highlights only the positive things a candidate has done. Glittering generalities use phrases that appeal to emotions and creates positive emotions.

Why might a candidate use the “plain folks” approach? Would this approach be effective in winning your vote? • How are “guilt by association” and “coat tailing” related? Explain your answer. The plain folks approach makes the candidate seem like a regular person, like the voters. Maybe, I try to listen to what they have to say versus how the appear, but appearance does matter. Guilt by association and coat tailing both use who the candidates friends are to influence voters. Guilt by association highlights negatives while coat tailing highlights positives.

What are three reasonable measuring sticks or criteria when choosing campaign propaganda strategies? Briefly explain each. 7. Three reasonable measuring sticks for campaign propaganda are informative, effective and ethical. An ad is informative if it provides important details, effective if it wins votes, and ethical if it is truthful and respectful of the opponent.

8. Define: • Political campaign - Organized effort to win an election for public office • Propaganda - Communication aimed at convincing others of a particular idea or position, publicity… • Tricks of the trade - Strategies or ways to persuade people • Slogans - Catchy phrases that provide the goals of the campaign; saying, mottos, refrains - Statement of support for a candidate • Endorsements • Statements about the person or idea (explaining why they are good) • Testimonials

Stacking the deck - Only telling the positives & leaving out all of the details Plain folks - Folksy – talks to the average person Negative or Attack Ads - Tearing down the other person to make yourself look good Glittering generalities - Using “catch phrases” that appeal to emotions Strategies • Maneuvers designed to frustrate, surprise, or overcome an opponent in order to secure a victory in an election.

Introductory paragraph rough draft: • Complete/provide the following information to create your introduction paragraph -remember that you’re writing a letter to your candidate: • Background information from BGE (background essay) • Restate the analytical questions using your own words • State the “measuring sticks” Campaign propaganda is a form of advertisement, where the product is you, the candidate. There are six main strategies that work: stacking the deck, testimonials/endorsements, plain folks, negative ads, glittering generalities, and guilt by association or coat tailing. The question is which strategies would you use to be effective, informative and ethical? A campaign is effective if it wins votes, informative if it gets your message to voters, and ethical if it is truthful and respectful of the opponent.

Remember the Analytical Question….Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? Remember we are asking… Would you use it? Is it informative? Is it effective? Is it ethical?

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? Campaign, propaganda, strategies Example: If you were a campaign manager and wanted your campaign to be informative, effective and ethical, what techniques would you use in your candidate’s ads? Follow example on the next slide Strategy #3 Strategy #1 Strategy #2

Honest • Trustworthy • Patriotic • Ethical • Family oriented Campaign media strategies are used to influence how citizens vote. Voters look for the best candidate to elect. They look for candidates who are: Character • Educated • Intelligent • Experienced • Good speakers • Honest • Trustworthy • Patriotic • Ethical • Family oriented • Educated • Intelligent • Experienced • Good speakers • Planners & Goal oriented • Issue oriented Skills • Planners & Goal oriented • Issue oriented Issues/Platform

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? Document A X Endorsements are statements of support They created at least 3 buttons with endorsements from retirees, United Paperworkers, & Asian Americans It is informative because it shows which groups are supporting the candidate. Knowing who is allied with the candidate tells voters more about their ideas. This could be effective if the viewer respected the groups giving the endorsement. For example older people knowing that retirees support Mondale-Ferraro. It is ethical because there’s nothing wrong with honestly showing who your supporters are.

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? A Private Collection, 2012 1984 N/A collection of campaign buttons X All of the buttons show support for Mondale/Ferraro . Each button shows these groups: Retirees, United Paper Workers and Asian Americans, support Mondale and/or Ferrara in the 1984 election. The inference is that when groups support a candidate it influences voters. This document shows that endorsements/testimonials are used in campaigns to influence voters. These groups show their support of the candidate. The main idea is the campaign buttons are used to promote candidates. Testimonials/Endorsements

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? Real Ad

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? x Stacking the deck means including only the positive facts and leaving out the negative ones The ad mentions only good things that happened during Reagan’s first term (2,000 families bought homes) Maybe…it shows important things Reagan did during his 1st term Yes? Because it shows a proud, strong and better America Yes – because it tells things that did happen under Reagan No – It doesn’t present the whole picture

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? B The Living Room Candidate, Museum of Moving Image Prouder, Stronger, Better 1984 Reagan TV advertisement X POV Reagan made people’s lives better President Reagan made our country better and he should be reelected. Interest rates are down, families are buying homes, people are going to work, men & women are getting married and inflation is down by half, because of Reagan our country is prouder, stronger, and better. The document shows that stacking the deck by pointing out only positives influences to voters. Showing the morning is a positive image too. Reagan is good for America, reelect him. Stacking the Deck

Real Ad Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? Real Ad

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? x It is designed to appeal to ordinary people and make the candidate seem to be just like them Eisenhower was a family man and is worried about prices and the hole in his shoe suggests he works hard like the people Not informative: doesn’t tell us much about the candidate Not really – but commercials are better today Yes – nothing wrong with showing that they were normal people (but were they?)

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? C The Living Room Candidate, Museum of Moving Image Eisenhower Answers America; I love the GUV 1952 Eisenhower Ad & Stevenson Ad X POV- Eisenhower is better; POV- Stevenson is better Both ads appeal to regular people. The Eisenhower ad says that we need him to end the high cost of living. Stevenson’s ad refers to a hole he had in his shoe and uses that to point out “holes” in what Eisenhower says. The ads appeal to plain folks and candidates need the plain folks (regular citizens) to vote for them to get in office. The strategy here is to appeal to the average Americans, to get them to believe “you” are the best candidate. This is done using “plain” talk that speaks to their problems. Using plain folks appeal gets voters to think of the candidate as being like them. Plain Folk

REAL AD REAL AD Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? REAL AD

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? X Negative attack ads say bad things about the opponent….designed to make voters fearful 2nd ad: Sends a message that Bush can’t be trusted – promised no new taxes and then raised taxes 1st ad: suggest Dukakis is against all defense and would not lead as commander in chief well Somewhat – inaccurately shows each candidates position on the issues like defense and taxes VERY Effective: they work so they are still used Not really – they are not honest and are disrespectful

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? D The Living Room Candidate, Museum of Moving Image Tank Ride; The G. Bush Promise Bush 1988; Clinton 1992 Bush Ad. / Clinton Ad. X POV Dukakis is weak on defense; POV Bush breaks promises Negative ads influence voters to mistrust or be afraid of the candidate. Therefor the other candidate is a better choice. Negative information can be used to slant voters. Dukakis weak on defense means the country will be weak. Bush lies about taxes, therefor he may be lying about other things too. You can’t trust him. This shows the impact of negative ads as in both elections the other candidate won. Bush won in 1988, Clinton in 1992. Negative ads get voters attention. Negative/ Attack Ads

Bell Ringer Only telling the positives & leaving out all of the details Using “catch phrases” that appeal to emotions talks to the average person Tearing down the other person to make yourself look good Stating your support of a candidate A statement that supports the person Guilt by association highlights negative relationships while coat tailing highlights positives.

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? X Glittering generalities involve using a certain “catch phrase” to appeal to people’s emotions Obama – “Hope” and “Forward”, but doesn’t explain what he means by these words Romney – “Believe in America” shows he has faith in America but its not specific Not at all: does not provide the voter with info about the candidate No: doesn’t give any useful information about candidate Yes: provides a positive feeling about the candidate Yes – there is no lying involved

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? E Barackobama.com / mittromney.com 2012 Obama-Biden Campaign / Romney Campaign X POV Obama=Hope & Forward; POV Romney=Believe Glittering generalities use catch phrases that appeal to emotions but are vague with little meaning. Obama’s campaign focused on the glittering generalities “Hope & forward” while Romney’s campaign focused on “Believe in America”. Obama’s campaign was more effective as he was reelected president. Glittering generalities give voters a catch phrase that appeals but leaves meaning open. These can be effective in a campaign. Glittering generalities are vague. Glittering Generalities

Real Ad Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? Real Ad.

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? X Coat Tailing: Candidate makes himself look good by connecting himself to a popular event or person Guilt by Association: candidate tries to make opponent look bad by connecting them with a bad event of person The two ads are evidence that both campaigns were using this strategy. No: Nothing is added to your knowledge of the candidates Yes: Can scare people and they can form a negative opinion No – casts doubt on the candidates

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? F Museum of the Moving Image The Living Room Candidate 1968 Nixon Ad. / Humphrey Ad. X POV Nixon Ad. Humphrey is part of Vietnam War POV Humphrey Ad. Democrats are good for you & so is Humphrey Negative ads can be used to associate your opponent with a negative image to imply they are part of the problem. These ads can also used to tie a candidate to positive information. This called “coat tail” or “Guilt by association”. Ads can be used to influence voters with negative information or with positive using different strategies. Negative Ads work better as Nixon defeated Humphrey to become the next president. Political campaigns try to influence voters with positive & negative information. Guilt by Association/ Coat-tailing

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? Document G source: google images - Governor Mitt Romney campaign 2012, Source: “The Living Room Candidate,” Museum of the Moving Image, 1952 X Band Wagon: candidate tries to persuade the voter to join in and become part of the group supporting the candidate In both ads “everyone” seems to be going along with the candidate’s message. No, no new information about the candidate is given. Yes, the ads make it look like the candidate is a “winner” already Yes – There is no disrespect involved

Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? Document Analysis Sheet: Long Form I G Living Room Candidate; Google images N/A 2012, 1952 X Ads are pro Romney and Eisenhower Each advertisement shows that there are many different people who voted for both Romney and Eisenhower. This document shows that bandwagon is used in campaigns to influence voters. Showing that a lot of different people vote for one candidate can influence others. Plus the ads make people feel like “winners” if they join everyone else. The inference is that people can influence others based on how they act (which candidate they support). The main idea is that people can influence others to join the bandwagon. Bandwagon

Task:Recommend 3 campaign propaganda strategiesExplain why the strategy is informative, effective & ethicalUse documents to support your decision

Start working on your essay! • Today you will start the DBQ Guided Essay using the document analysis pages and Background Essay from the DBQ packet. • Using the guided essay, we will work through constructing the introduction and paragraph 1 of your essay (letter). • You will finish the Guided Essay and write the final copy of your essay (letter) at home! • The completedDBQ packet, Guided Essay and the final copy of your “essay” are ______________________!!!

RAINBOW EDITING Thesis & Baby Thesis Evidence Argument

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A DBQ for the second nine weeks Campaign

A DBQ for the second nine weeks. Campaign Propaganda: Which Strategies Would You Use? When you get your packet, write your name and class period on the top line.

一 The Hook: (page 385) Would You Vote For This Man? FACTS INFERENCES � Buttons have been a tool in political campaigns for over � A fact is something you � An inference is something one hundred fifty years. can read or see about each you can assume from a button. fact. � When you look over these buttons, you will need to write facts and inferences about them. � Read each button’s words � An inference is like reading carefully. between the lines. � Look at the pictures on each button carefully. � What are the words and pictures trying to make you think?

二 Background Essay: Timeline Turn to page 391 and follow along with the pictures as we click through history. I hate you! W A S HINGTON I hate you! Ike For President (click me!)

二 Background Essay: Vocabulary (page 391) Skim the background essay for these words and use context clues and nearby student to come up with approximation definitions. You have 8 minutes. v political campaign v propaganda v tricks of the trade v slogans v endorsements v testimonials

二 Background Essay: Vocabulary Check your definitions. Did you get close? Add as much as you need to from these definitions. v political campaign: Organized effort to win an election for public office v propaganda: Communication aimed at convincing others of a particular idea or position v tricks of the trade: Strategies or methods employed for a particular purpose v slogans: Catchy phrases conveying the goals of a campaign v endorsements: Statements of support v testimonials: Statements about a person’s idea’s worth

二 Background Essay: Listening Please follow along with your finger as I read the background essay aloud. v political campaign: Organized effort to win an election for public office v propaganda: Communication aimed at convincing others of a particular idea or position v tricks of the trade: Strategies or methods employed for a particular purpose v slogans: Catchy phrases conveying the goals of a campaign v endorsements: Statements of support v testimonials: Statements about a person’s idea’s worth

二 Background Essay: Quickthinks DO NOT GET INTO YOUR GROUPS UNTIL I’VE READ ALL THESE INSTRUCTIONS! • Your group is based on your row (so no more than 4 per group). • Move your desks together and keep apart from other groups. • Re-read the background essay on page 387 and 389 together. • The group leader (the person whose birthday comes up next) will start by reading the first paragraph. • Everyone in the group will then share their first impression starting with the person to the left of the group leader. • Everyone will write one of those quickthinks in the margin of the DBQ. (YOU CAN GET INTO GROUPS NOW)

二 Background Essay: Questions Turn to page 391 again. As a group, answer the background essay questions.

二 Background Essay: Questions Check your work: do your answers have this information? • I will read the answers in the teacher’s guide out loud. • Please put a checkmark next to the ones that you feel you “got right. ” • If you need to see the teacher’s guide, come see me later.

三 Understanding the Question (page 393) 1. 2. 3. What is the analytical question asked by this mini-Q? see title page What terms in the question need to be defined? campaign, propaganda, strategies Rewrite the question in your own words. If you were a campaign manager and wanted your campaign to be informative, effective, and ethical, what techniques would you use in your candidate’s ads?

三 Pre-Bucketing – 3 Buckets (page 393) What techniques would you use? Technique #1 Technique #2 Technique #3 Technique #4 Technique #5 Technique #6

Document number or letter ______ Title of Document (if present) Source (Where did the document come from? ) s i s y l a n A t Date of document Author of Document n e m u s c n o o i D t Bias / Point of View s Primary Source 四 Possibleu Author e Q f d o n s a p u Secondary Source o r g n w o r u ocan I make ent. How. does this document help y s What important facts can I learn What inferences e s ofrom this document? d o from this document? answer the question? u h t c s r y u a o e m f e r u r o o h t e Y e n r i h h t t i I w , s n e p e u r o c r s g e e h s t o n o o h c g t n i o r n a n e a. p c s p p u a u o r g thiswhat is thesimain If yo s of. Overall, n g idea e s t a u illdocument? of the w min Analytical category (bucket):

Document number or letter ______ Title of Document (if present) Source (Where did the document come from? ) 四 Do. Author of Document c um. Bias e Primary Source Possible Author /t. Point of View n Analy and Q sis uesti Secondary Source ons What important facts can I learn What inferences can I make How does this document help T IMthis. Edocument? from this document? from answer the question? ’S UP ! I WIL L NOW YOU SELE R GR CT OUP S (or not). Overall, what is the main idea Date of document of the document? Analytical category (bucket):

四 Document Analysis and Questions For each document, look over the ads in the document and write at least one fact and one inference for each ad. Document A has three ads (so you need 3 facts/observations and 3 inferences) Document B has one ad Document C has two ads Document D has two ads Document E has four ads Document F has two ads For each document, you must also answer the questions at the bottom of the page. I will help you with the first question.

Which propaganda strategy was used? There are multiple answers! This is just the MAIN strategy. �Document A: Mondale and Ferraro, 1984 Testimonials/Endorsements �Document B: Ronald Regan, 1984 Stacking the Deck �Document C: Eisenhower vs. Stevenson, 1952 Plain Folks �Document D: George H. W. Bush, 1988 and 1992 Negative or Attack Ads �Document E: Obama vs. Romney, 2012 Glittering Generalities �Document F: Nixon vs. Humphrey, 1968 Guilt by Association/Coat-tailing

五 Bucketing – 5 Paragraphs Letter (page 407) What techniques would you use? Technique #1 $600, 000 Advertisement Technique #2 $300, 000 Advertisement Technique #3 $100, 000 Advertisement Some documents may use multiple strategies, so make sure you put as many documents as you can in each bucket!

六 Thesis Development and Road Map I would distribute my one million dollars as follows: , 1 y g rate st (page 407) 0 0 0 , 0 $60 strategy 2, $300, 000 strate gy 3, $ 100, 0 00

七 Essay Outline (page 409) � Grabber: Remember, you are writing a letter. How would you start a letter? Who are you writing to? � Background: Using your imagination is okay for this part. What are the strategy choices? What is propaganda? � Restating the question with key terms defined: Copy what you wrote for page 393, #3. � Thesis and road map: Turn your chicken foot into a sentence.

七 Essay Outline I would distribute my one million dollars as follows: (page 409) 0 0 0 , 0 60 t y t i r a o ch $ e t a don buy two cars for $300, 000 use $1 00, 00 0 in d wallp ollar b aper. ills for ___________________________________________________

七 Essay Outline I would distribute my one million dollars as follows: (page 409) 0 0 0 , 0 60 t y t i r a o ch $ e t a don buy two cars for $300, 000 use $1 00, 00 0 in d wallp ollar b aper. ills for I would distribute my one million dollars as follows: donate $600, 000 to charity, buy two cars for $300, 000, and use $100, 000 in dollar bills for wallpaper.

七 Essay Outline � Baby (page 409) Thesis: ____ is my number one, $600, 000 strategy. ____ is my number two, $300, 000 strategy. ____ is my number three, $100, 000 strategy. � Evidence: Bush used this strategy in 1984 (Doc A). Kerry’s slogan was “A Stronger America”. Clinton and Dole used this strategy in 1996 (Doc E). � Argument: Write about why the ad used was informative. Write about why the ad used was effective. Write about why the ad used was ethical.

七 Essay Outline (page 409) � Conclusion: “Although” statement: Write about strategies that would be a bad fit for your candidate. � Conclusion: convincing restatement of the main idea. For the reasons above, strategy 1, strategy 2, and strategy three are informative, effective, and ethical. They are informative because ____. They are effective because ____. They are ethical because ____. I recommend these for our campaign. Remember, you are writing a letter. What does a letter end with?

七 Essay Outline (page 409) �Show me your outline when you are finished. �Once I have checked your outline, you may start writing.

八 Essay Writing Day – No Talking If you need assistance, raise your hand wait for me to come to you. You may also come to the front table to scroll through this presentation for help on your outline. Good luck! がんばって! ¡Buena suerte!

ERROR END OF FILE 1. If you have reached this slide, please decorate your DBQ folder. 2. Every slide after this refers to another DBQ. The answers after this will be wrong for this DBQ. Don’t forget your home prep! 3.

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Campaign Propaganda:Which Strategies Would You

A DBQ for the second nine weeks.

When you get your packet, write your name and class period on the top line.

一 The Hook: (page 385)

Would You Vote For This Man?

A fact is something you can read or see about each button.

Read each button’s words carefully.

Look at the pictures on each button carefully.

An inference is something you can assume from a fact.

An inference is like reading between the lines.

What are the words and pictures trying to make you think?

Buttons have been a tool in political campaigns for over one hundred fifty years.

When you look over these buttons, you will need to write facts and inferences about them.

二 Background Essay:Timeline

Turn to page 391 and follow along with the pictures as we click through history.

I hate you!

I hate you!A HINGW S TON

Ike For President(click me!)

二 Background Essay:Vocabulary (page 391)

Skim the background essay for these words and use context clues and nearby student to come up with approximation definitions. You have 8 minutes.

political campaign propaganda

tricks of the trade slogans

endorsements testimonials

二 Background Essay:Vocabulary

Check your definitions. Did you get close? Add as much as you need to from these definitions.

political campaign: Organized effort to win an election for public office propaganda: Communication aimed at convincing others of a particular idea or position tricks of the trade: Strategies or methods employed for a particular purpose slogans: Catchy phrases conveying the goals of a campaign endorsements: Statements of support testimonials: Statements about a person’s idea’s worth

二 Background Essay:Listening

Please follow along with your finger as I read the background essay aloud.

二 Background Essay:Quickthinks

DO NOT GET INTO YOUR GROUPSUNTIL I’VE READ ALL THESE INSTRUCTIONS!

• Your group is based on your row (so no more than 4 per group).• Move your desks together and keep apart from other groups.

• Re-read the background essay on page 387 and 389 together.• The group leader (the person whose birthday comes up next) will start by reading the first paragraph.

• Everyone in the group will then share their first impression starting with the person to the left of the group leader.• Everyone will write one of those quickthinks in the margin of the DBQ. (YOU CAN GET INTO GROUPS NOW)

二 Background Essay:Questions

As a group, answer the background essay

Turn to page 391 again.

Check your work: do your answers have this information?

• I will read the answers in the teacher’s guide out loud.• Please put a checkmark next to the ones that you feel you “got right.”

• If you need to see the teacher’s guide, come see me later.

三 Understanding the Question (page 393)

1. What is the analytical question asked by this mini-Q?

2. What terms in the question need to be defined?

3. Rewrite the question in your own words.

see title page

campaign, propaganda, strategies

If you were a campaign manager and wanted your campaign to be informative, effective, and ethical, what techniques would you use in your candidate’s ads?

三 Pre-Bucketing – 3 Buckets(page 393)

What techniques would you use?

Technique #4 Technique #5 Technique #6

Technique #1 Technique #2 Technique #3

Document number or letter ______

Title of Document (if present)

Date of document

Primary Source

Secondary Source

Possible Author Bias / Point of View

Author of Document

Source (Where did the document come from?)

What important facts can I learn from this document?

What inferences can I make from this document?

How does this document help answer the question?

Overall, what is the main idea of the document?

Analytical category (bucket):

四 Document Analysis

and Questions

You may choose your own groups

three or four students.

If you cannot choose groups within

three minutes of this appearing on

the screen, I will assign groups.

四 Document Analysisand QuestionsTIME’S UP!I WILL NOW SELECT

YOUR GROUPS (or not).

四 Document Analysis and Questions

For each document, look over the ads in the document and write at least one fact and one

inference for each ad.

Document A has three ads(so you need 3 facts/observations and 3

inferences)

Document B has one adDocument C has two adsDocument D has two adsDocument E has four ads

Document F has two ads

For each document, you must also answer the questions at the bottom of the page. I will help you with the first question.

Which propaganda strategy was used? There are multiple answers! This is just the MAIN strategy.

Document A: Mondale and Ferraro, 1984Testimonials/Endorsements

Document B: Ronald Regan, 1984Stacking the Deck

Document C: Eisenhower vs. Stevenson, 1952Plain Folks

Document D: George H.W. Bush, 1988 and 1992Negative or Attack Ads

Document E: Obama vs. Romney, 2012Glittering Generalities

Document F: Nixon vs. Humphrey, 1968Guilt by Association/Coat-tailing

五 Bucketing – 5 Paragraphs Letter(page 407)

Technique #1$600,000

Advertisement

Technique #2$300,000

Technique #3$100,000

Some documents may use multiple strategies,so make sure you put as many documents as you can in each bucket!

六 Thesis Developmentand Road Map (page 407)

I would distribute my one million dollars as follows:

strategy 1, $600,000

strategy 2, $300,000strategy 3, $100,000

七 Essay Outline (page 409)

Grabber: Remember, you are writing a letter.

Using How would you start a letter? your imagination Who are you writing to? is okay for this

part. Background:

What are the strategy choices? What is propaganda?

Restating the question with key terms defined: Copy what you wrote for page 393, #3.

Thesis and road map: Turn your chicken foot into a sentence.

donate $600,000 to charity

buy two cars for $300,000use $100,000 in dollar bills

for wallpaper.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I would distribute my one million dollars as follows: donate $600,000 to charity, buy two cars for $300,000, and use $100,000 in dollar bills for wallpaper.

Baby Thesis: ________ is my number one, $600,000 strategy. ________ is my number two, $300,000 strategy. ________ is my number three, $100,000 strategy.

Evidence: Bush used this strategy in 1984 (Doc A). Kerry’s slogan was “A Stronger America”. Clinton and Dole used this strategy in 1996 (Doc E).

Argument: Write about why the ad used was informative. Write about why the ad used was effective. Write about why the ad used was ethical.

Conclusion: “Although” statement: Write about strategies that would be a bad fit

for your candidate.

Conclusion: convincing restatement of the main idea. For the reasons above, strategy 1, strategy 2,

and strategy three are informative, effective, and ethical.

They are informative because ________. They are effective because ________. They are ethical because ________. I recommend these for our campaign.

Remember, you are writing a letter. What does a letter end with?

Show me your outline when you are finished.

Once I have checked your outline, you may start writing.

八 Essay Writing Day – No Talking

If you need assistance, raise your hand and wait for me to come to you. You may also come to the front table to scroll through this presentation for help on your outline.

がんばって !¡Buena suerte!

ERROR END OF FILE

1. If you have reached this slide, please decorate your DBQ folder.

2. Every slide after this refers to another DBQ. The answers after this will be wrong for this DBQ.

3. Don’t forget your home prep!

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Taiwan, on China’s Doorstep, Is Dealing With TikTok Its Own Way

The island democracy was early to ban TikTok on government phones, and the ruling party refuses to use it. But a U.S.-style ban is not under consideration.

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By Meaghan Tobin and Amy Chang Chien

Reporting from Taipei, Taiwan

As it is in the United States, TikTok is popular in Taiwan, used by a quarter of the island’s 23 million residents.

People post videos of themselves shopping for trendy clothes, dressing up as video game characters and playing pranks on their roommates. Influencers share their choreographed dances and debate whether the sticky rice dumplings are better in Taiwan’s north or south.

Taiwanese users of TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance, are also served the kind of pro-China content that the U.S. Congress cited as a reason it passed a law that could result in a ban of TikTok in America.

One recent example is a video showing a Republican congressman, Rob Wittman of Virginia, stoking fears that a vote for the ruling party in Taiwan’s January election would prompt a flood of American weapons to aid the island democracy in a possible conflict with China, which claims it as part of its territory. The video was flagged as fake by a fact-checking organization, and TikTok took it down.

About 80 miles from China’s coast, Taiwan is particularly exposed to the possibility of TikTok’s being used as a source of geopolitical propaganda. Taiwan has been bombarded with digital disinformation for decades, much of it traced back to China.

But unlike Congress, the government in Taiwan is not contemplating legislation that could end in a ban of TikTok.

Officials in Taiwan say the debate over TikTok is just one battle in a war against disinformation and foreign influence that the country has already been fighting for years.

Taiwan has built an arsenal of defenses , including a deep network of independent fact-checking organizations. There is a government ministry dedicated to digital affairs.

And Taiwan was early to label TikTok a national security threat. The government issued an executive order banning it from official devices in 2019, along with two other Chinese apps that play short videos: Douyin, which is also owned by ByteDance, and Xiaohongshu.

The political party that has governed Taiwan for the past eight years — and is set to do so for another four when Lai Ching-te is inaugurated as president on Monday — does not use the app, even during campaign season, over concerns about its data collection.

Here in Taiwan, lawmakers say, they do not have the luxury of thinking of TikTok as the only threat. Disinformation reaches Taiwanese internet users on every type of social media, from chat rooms to short videos.

“If you say you are targeting China, people will ask why we are not also talking about others,” said Puma Shen, a lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. “That’s why our strategy needs to be that we are regulating every social media platform, not just TikTok,” said Mr. Shen, formerly the head of Doublethink Lab, a disinformation research group in Taipei.

Taiwan has a deeply ingrained culture of free political speech, having taken the first steps to democracy only about three decades ago. Debate thrives across a huge variety of social media platforms, including on Taiwanese online forums, such as Dcard and Professional Technology Temple .

But the most widely used platforms have foreign owners, and TikTok is not the only one. YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, operated by publicly traded U.S. companies, are even more popular than TikTok in Taiwan. And Line, a messaging app owned by a Japanese subsidiary of the South Korean internet giant Naver, is commonly used in the country as a news source and way to make payments.

Legislators in Taiwan are considering measures that tackle internet threats — fraud, scams and cybercrime — broadly enough to apply to all these existing social media platforms, including TikTok, as well as whatever might replace them in the future.

One proposal introduced this month would require influential platforms that feature online advertising, which effectively encompasses all of them, to register a legal representative in Taiwan. Officials said these restrictions were not aimed at TikTok.

“We currently think that TikTok is a product that endangers national information security, but this designation does not target TikTok specifically,” said Lee Huai-jen , the departing spokesman for the Ministry of Digital Affairs. The ministry slapped the same classification on other Chinese short-video apps, including Douyin and Xiaohongshu, which have large audiences in China.

In March, executives from TikTok’s Singapore office met with government and political officials in Taiwan. The company talked with officials to “seek their feedback on our platform and for us to detail the many ways in which we keep our community safe,” a TikTok spokeswoman said. She added that the app’s data collection policies were in line with industry practices.

When Taiwan went to the polls in January, multiple organizations and government agencies were on call to make sure the conversation on TikTok stuck to the facts.

TikTok communicated with Taiwan’s election commission, police agency and interior ministry to flag potentially illegal content. TikTok said it had removed almost 1,500 videos for violating its policies on misinformation and election integrity, and took down a network of 21 accounts that were amplifying pro-China narratives. It also worked with a local fact-checking group to tag election-related videos with resources about misinformation.

But the day after the election, the website of the Taiwan Fact Check Center, a nongovernmental organization that works with tech companies including Google and Meta, was overwhelmed with thousands of visitors, according to its chief executive, Eve Chiu.

Many had seen videos on TikTok and YouTube showing volunteer poll workers making errors in the vote count and questioned the results of the election, Ms. Chiu said. Some of these videos were real, she added. The problem was that viewers were primed to think the scale of error was much larger than it was.

While Taiwan’s ruling political party did not use TikTok to campaign, its opponents, who are viewed with less antagonism by Beijing, did.

But some worry that this made it easier for pro-China views to spread on TikTok, and that Taiwan’s approach to regulating social media is not robust enough to confront the persistent threat of foreign influence online.

“In the U.S., the target is very clear — this one platform — but in Taiwan, we don’t know where the enemy is,” Ms. Chiu said. “It’s not just a cross-strait issue, but a domestic one.”

Meaghan Tobin is a technology correspondent for The Times based in Taipei, covering business and tech stories in Asia with a focus on China. More about Meaghan Tobin

Amy Chang Chien is a reporter and researcher for The Times in Taipei, covering Taiwan and China. More about Amy Chang Chien