anyone have tips on how to approach Document based questions for ap american?

Question

should i base my essay solely on how the documents are tseering me. Or rather write my essay first and then just use the docs that suit my essay? thanks..

Answer 1

Ah, the DBQ. So, so glad I'm finished with that.

I'm sure you're already familiar with the basic criteria for the essay - use a majority of the documents, bring in outside knowledge, etc. So here's how I was taught to approach it (I got a 5).

- First, use the reading period to look through ALL the documents. Take a few minutes to think about them. For each document, jot down a brief sentence or two that summarizes what the document is about and what it says. Make sure to pay close attention to how it's categorized.

- Once you've done this, divide up the documents. For example, if your question asks about women's roles, you need to figure out how the documents address the question. You might see that some of them are about women in the 20th century, while others are about women in the 19th century. You might further notice that the 19th century women seem to have different perspectives depending on their social class. (I'm making this all up, obviously, although I think my essay was somewhat similar.)

- Now you're ready to structure your essay. Use what you've discovered from the documents to create a strong thesis statement that addresses the prompt - for the above, for example, you could write that lower class women were freer in the 1800s, but that women in general achieved improved social status as time wore on.

- Then, figure out the main topics of the paragraphs for the rest of the essay. There's no real number that you must have, but there should be enough to address every point of your thesis. Perhaps, for example, you will look at women's status from social, economic, and political perspectives. Once you've done this, look through your summaries of the documents, and assign each one to the paragraph where it most neatly fits in. This should use most of them, but if there are a few that don't fit, don't try to shove them in.

- Now, it's finally time to write your essay! Make sure to reference the documents in the appropriate paragraphs, but don't summarize them, analyze them. You should be talking about the history as shown in the documents, not so much the documents themselves.

I know this much planning seems like it takes a lot of time, but it really pays off, and after some practice, you can get through it fairly quickly. Best of luck!