Teaching AP History Skills: DBQ

Teaching an Advanced Placement class comes with different expectations than a regular class. You will, normally, be given students that have a strong desire to learn. You will have students that have a good understanding of the topic at hand and generally will do their homework. In addition,  one of the most fun but challenging differences, you will have students that will challenge what you know because they have a strong passion for the topic and want to share what they know and argue their beliefs. When I first moved from teaching regular classes to AP it was exactly what I expected but not at all at the same time. Teaching regular classes had its advantages because you could expand fun topics over a few days because you had time to play with. Unfortunately, AP classes are on more of a tight schedule because of the extensive curriculum you have to get through. One of the most important things I've learned through my experience teaching AP classes is that you need to teach them the skills to do well in an AP class and can't expect that they already know them.

One of the most important skills to teach as an AP History teacher is how to analyze documents and write a good DBQ Essay. College Board changed the design of the AP history tests because they wanted the tests to reflect the skills that AP students should have prior to going to college. If students do well on AP history exams they will, most of the time, receive college credit, and go straight to a 200 level history course. Therefore, it is necessary for these students to have the skills learned in a 100 level history class taught to them in our AP classes so they are prepared for those 200 level history classes. The skills these students need are:
1) Research Skills

2) Time Management Skills 

3) Critical Thinking and Analysis Writing Skills

4) Deep Reading Analysis 

5) History Vocabulary 

5) Ability to Identify Change Over Time 

6) Geographical Awareness 

7) Historical Perspective

8) Evaluation of Evidence

9) Attentive to Subtleties

10) Understanding of Historiography  

The new AP tests reflect these skills and therefore tests them to ensure that only the students that have these skills get a good score. 

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One of the skills I noticed my students did not have prior to entering my AP classes was organizing a DBQ Essay. They had the basic understanding of how to read documents and how to group them, but analyzing them was not one of their strengths. This is why I created my product AP World History DBQ: The Black Death. This DBQ packets helps students build the skill of analyzing documents and gives them step-by-step directions on how to write a DBQ essay that hits all the points on the new DBQ rubric. The first thing I have them do in the packet is learn how to "source" the documents. Around each document I put four boxes that students must fill in with information about the document: context, audience, purpose and point of view. By having students practice this on every document they get a good understanding of the document and can look back at their boxes to help them use the document in the essay. The next thing I have them do is write a thesis that answers the question through the use of a "grouping documents" chart. Once they have their thesis I layout how to write the essay and what to include in each paragraph. 

My students DBQ Essay scores drastically improved after this packet. They understood the steps to take to write a good essay by developing an approach to the documents and the essay. It is skills like these that are essential for AP students to not only help them get a good score on the AP exam but to also give them the skill-set to do well in college. 

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Why Do I Teach?

"Ms. Cuomo, why did you choose to become a teacher?", asked Luke, a student in my study hall who I had yet to have in my class. Before I got the chance to respond he continued, "Is it because of the money?" Laughing to myself, while taken aback by the random question, I responded, "I enjoy making history fun and connecting it to real life. I want to have an impact on students' lives. Plus, it can't possibly be for the money Luke, teachers do not make much." Luke laughed to himself and said "I know you don't. That's why I thought it would be funny to ask."

Luke, now a student in my World History class, asked me that question a year ago during my first year of teaching. He was simply trying to be funny and make conversation during a study hall, not realizing I asked myself that same question almost every day that year and continue to every day.

I love teaching, that is the true answer to the question. I enjoy helping advanced students push themselves harder than they thought possible. I enjoy help struggling students learn how to learn and become confident in their abilities when no other teacher believed in them. Who wouldn't love that? Then why was I constantly asking myself why I was teaching if I knew the answer. The reason is because teaching is HARD. Educators tell you that when you are studying to be a teacher, but it is impossible to fully understand it until you are on your own trying to figure it out. Your first year you have to build your materials, learn classroom management, learn the ways of the school and occasionally sleep. In addition you are playing the role of counselor, mentor, role model, advocator, advise giver, coach, club mentor and more. You come to the school to teach a lesson you put hours into but leave wondering if your student's father will kick her out of the house again and make her walk the streets. You wonder if your strategic seating chart helped the girl who was bullied in her old school make a friend in this one. You want to know if your quiet student made the soccer team, if the actor in your class had a good audition for that commercial, if the surgery of your student with a tumor went well, and how on earth he can deal with that without telling another soul at school. You go home with a list of things to do, papers to grade and lessons to plan, but wondering why you became a teacher if there are more important things for your students to learn than when the Roman Empire fell or what led to the rise of the Renaissance.

It is after going home with those worries in your head for months on end that you finally figure out what your job is. Yes, you may have to teach your students the history of the world, how to write an essay and how to analyze documents, but that is not your real job. Your real job is to teach them the life skills to survive, to become good people and most importantly, to realize their full potential. It is then that you beginning designing your lessons around life skills that are taught through content. You ask them to analyze why history is important then ask them to reflect on whether knowing their personal history makes people better understand them. You ask them if one person can make a difference in the world when you analyze Julius Caesar. You make them have meaningful conversation with their classmates when learning about the Black Plague and reflect on how lives can change in the blink of the eye. You make them analyze their personal life journey when learning about the journey people went on in the times of the Silk Road (Silk Road Project). You make them work in teams to know what it's like to work together and you make them fail as a team to teach them how to go down as one and rise up as one. You make them question themselves and everything they know, constantly asking them what history they are making and if they are making a difference. You teach them responsibility, perseverance and hard work. Yes, you are teaching them content, but it is so much more than that.

Why did I become a teacher? I wanted to make history fun. Why am I still a teacher? I want my students to have the life skills to make it in the world and I want to see them succeed. I want them to walk out of my classroom better than they walked in and at the end of every class I ask myself if I have done that.

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