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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