writing a dbq: ap * u.s. history

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WRITING A DBQ:

AP* U.S. History

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What Is a DBQ?

• An essay question that asks you to take a position on an issue that has several possible answers

• No “right” or “correct” response• You must craft a thesis based on your own

knowledge and your interpretation of the evidence presented

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DBQ Documents

• Charts, graphs, and maps• Newspaper articles/editorials• Speeches• Letters• Diaries• Laws• Treaties• Executive orders• Editorial cartoons

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Prompt Analysis Format

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The Question

Read the question carefully, then think about the following:

• What is the essence of the question?• Is it a yes/no, “to what extent,” or “compare

and contrast” question?• Does it have more than one part?• Are there bullets provided?• Is there a choice of responses?

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Sample DBQ: Multipart QuestionDiscuss the changing ideals of American womanhood between the American Revolution (1770s) and the outbreak of the Civil War. What factors fostered the emergence of “republican motherhood” and the “cult of domesticity”? Assess the extent to which these ideals influenced the lives of women during this period. In your answer be sure to consider issues of race and class.

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Discuss the changing ideals of American womanhood between the American Revolution (1770s) and the outbreak of the Civil War. What factors fostered the emergence of “republican motherhood” and the “cult of domesticity”? Assess the extent to which these ideals influenced the lives of women during this period. In your answer be sure to consider issues of race and class.

Key Terms

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Discuss the changing ideals of American womanhood between the American Revolution (1770s) and the outbreak of the Civil War. What factors fostered the emergence of “republican motherhood” and the “cult of domesticity”? Assess the extent to which these ideals influenced the lives of women during this period. In your answer be sure to consider issues of race and class.

Date Parameters

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Date Parameters (continued)

• Does the question state specific dates? What are they?

• If no specific date parameters are given, set ones of your own

• List presidents of the period• Put the question in chronological context of

the events and culture of the period

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Construct a Database• Use a database to organize outside

information you know that may be relevant to the question

• Write down headings on the back of your test booklet

• Create the database before you read the documents

• Next, read the documents and add any other info to your database that occurs to you

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Analyzing the Documents

• A document is not a fact, but a piece of evidence to interpret

• Point of view is crucial• Does the document support or refute your

thesis?

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Analyzing the Documents:SOAPS

• S subject What is being discussed?

• O occasion What is the context of events?

• Aaudience

To whom is the message directed?

• Ppurpose

What is the recommended action to the reader?

• Sspeaker

What/who is the source?

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Analyzing the Documents:APPARTS

• P=Place and time: Where and when was the source produced? How might this have affected the content of the source?

• P=Prior knowledge: Beyond information about the author and the context of its creation, what do you know that would help you further understand the source?

• A=Author: Who created the source? What do you know about the author? What is the author’s point of view?

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• S=Significance: Why is this source important? Ask yourself, “So what?” in relation to the question asked.

Analyzing the Documents:APPARTS (continued)

• T=The main idea: What point is the source trying to convey?

• R=Reason why: Why was this source produced? How might this affect the reliability of the source?

• A=Audience: For whom was the source created? How might this affect the reliability of the source?

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The First Paragraph

• Insight: analysis, perspective, point of view• Make a strong first impression• Provide analysis of the question• The reader should know your position on

the question unequivocally after the first paragraph

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The Thesis Statement• A positive assertion regarding an issue

about which reasonable people may hold different opinions

• Answers the question in one sentence• Use your notes and database to organize

your arguments• Don’t discuss the documents in the order in

which the DBQ presents them

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The Body of the Essay

• Provide factual support for your thesis• Stay focused on the question• Don’t just write down everything you know

about the topic• Chronological sequence is more important

than precise dates

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The Body of the Essay (continued)

• Stick to the facts; don’t editorialize• Make sure that each point you make

supports your thesis• Include outside information• Cite a majority of the documents

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The Conclusion

If time permits, write a conclusion that provides the following information: if my thesis is correct, then ________ is true.

An example: If the Navigation Acts were not economically oppressing the colonists, then we must look elsewhere for the basic causes of the American Revolution.

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Prompt Analysis Format: Summary1. What is the ESSENCE of the question?2. What key terms need to be DEFINED?3. Are the date PARAMETERS stated?4. Construct a DATABASE5. Analyze the documents (SOAPS or APPARTS). Always

take POINT OF VIEW into account.6. Provide INSIGHT into the complexity of the question7. Write a clear THESIS that answers the question in one

sentence8. Provide abundant and appropriate factual SUPPORT for

your thesis9. If time permits, write a CONCLUSION

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DBQ Facts & Tips

• Within the free-response section, the DBQ counts for 50% and the other two essays count for 25% each.

• You have 210 minutes to write the free-response section. That’s roughly 60 minutes for the DBQ and 35 minutes each for the other essays.

• Handwriting matters!

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DBQ #1

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Using information from the evidence (that follows) as well as your knowledge of the period, to what extent did the presidency of Andrew Jackson bring about a social, economic, and political revolution?

Question

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Prompt Analysis FormatLet’s apply the prompt analysis format to this question.

1. ESSENCE2. DEFINITIONS3. PARAMETERS4. DATABASE5. POINT OF VIEW6. INSIGHT7. THESIS8. SUPPORT9. CONCLUSION

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What is the ESSENCE of the question, and what kind of

judgment is it asking you to make?


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Does the answer have more than one part?


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What key terms need to be DEFINED?


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What are the PARAMETERS?


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Construct a DATABASE

SOCIAL POLITICAL ECONOMIC

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SOCIAL• Era of social reform• Influence of Second Great

Awakening– Prohibition of alcohol– Indian removal– Religious revival– Education reform– Prison– Women’s issues– Abolition– Belief in the perfectibility

of man and society– Labor reaction to the

Industrial Revolution• Anti-intellectual• Era of common man• Frontier myth• Utopian communities


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ECONOMIC• The Bank War

– Nicholas Biddle– Private profit and

accountability– Removal of federal

deposits– Pet banks

• Government responsibility for prosperity

• Compromise Tariff of 1833• Panic of 1837• Specie Circular• French debt question

– seizing French assets


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POLITICAL• Caucus overthrown• Nominating conventions begin• Strong Executive

– Using presidential influence in Congress– Jackson vetoes– Nullification controversy

• Extension of suffrage– Elimination of property and religious

restrictions– Holding office– More elective offices– Humble appeal to voters

• Popular participation• Mass rallies and movements• Slogans• Log cabin• Man of the people

• Presidential electors• Nullification proclamation and sectionalism• Spoils system• Influence beyond his terms• BUS in politics• Texas question• Tyranny of the majority• Belief in minimal government • Jackson’s contradictory states’ rights and federal

supremacy positions

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Provide your INSIGHT


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READ and ANALYZE the documents

DATABASE INTERPRETATION

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Source: Margaret Bayard Smith's Eyewitness Account of Jackson's Inauguration (1829)

Document A

An almost breathless silence, succeeded and the multitude was still,—listening to catch the sound of his voice, tho’ it was so low, as to be heard only by those nearest to him. After reading his speech, the oath was administered to him by the Chief Justice. The Marshal presented the Bible. The President took it from his hands, pressed his lips to it, laid it reverently down, then bowed again to the people—Yes, to the people in all their majesty. And had the spectacle closed here, even Europeans must have acknowledged that a free people, collected in their might, silent and tranquil, restrained solely by a moral power, without a shadow around of military force, was majesty, rising to sublimity, and far surpassing the majesty of Kings and Princes, surrounded with armies and glittering in gold…

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Source: Margaret Bayard Smith's Eyewitness Account of Jackson's Inauguration (1829)

Document B

The whole of the preceding day, immense crowds were coming into the city from all parts, lodgings could not be obtained, and the newcomers had to go to George Town…I was told the Avenue and adjoining streets were so crowded on Tuesday afternoon that it was difficult to pass…

No arrangements had been made [and] no police officers placed on duty and the whole house had been inundated by the rabble mob… The President, after having been literally nearly pressed to death and almost suffocated and torn to pieces by the people in their eagerness to shake hands with Old Hickory, had retreated through the back way or south front and had escaped to his lodgings at Gadsby's. Cut glass and china to the amount of several thousand dollars had been broken in the struggle to get the refreshments, punch and other articles had been carried out in tubs and buckets…

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Source: Jackson Announces His Policy of Rotation in Office (1829)

Document C

In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another. Offices were not established to give support to particular men at the public expense. No individual wrong is, therefore, done by removal, since neither appointment to nor continuance in office is a matter of right. The incumbent became an officer with a view to public benefits, and when these require his removal they are not to be sacrificed to private interests. It is the people, and they alone, who have a right to complain when a bad officer is substituted for a good one.

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The injustice of your new principle of “Reform” would have been too glaring had it been at once boldly unfolded; and hence is it that it was brought out by degrees. At first it was pretended that those only who had made use of office as an engine for electioneering purposes were to be “reformed away.” But when it was discovered that there were in place very many of your own friends who had been guilty of this unconstitutional impropriety; as you have been pleased to call it, who, contrary to any feeling of gratitude or sense of duty, had stung the bosom which warmed, and the hand which fed them, making use of their office in the gift of Mr. Adams, as the means of furthering your designs upon the Presidency to his exclusion, and that your rule was a “two-edged sword,” which, if honestly borne, would “cut upon both sides,” it was soon carefully withheld, and finally gave way to a much more comprehensive scheme of reform.

Source: Letter from Mrs. Barney to President Jackson (1829)

Document D

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A bank of the United States is in many respects convenient for the Government and useful to the people. Entertaining this opinion, and deeply impressed with the belief that some of the powers and privileges possessed by the existing bank are unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive of the rights of the States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people, I felt it my duty at an early period of my Administration to call the attention of Congress to the practicability of organizing an institution combining all its advantages and obviating these objections. I sincerely regret that in the act before me I can perceive none of those modifications of the bank charter which are necessary, in my opinion, to make it compatible with justice, with sound policy, or with the Constitution of our country… In the bearings of the act before me upon these points I find ample reasons why it should not become a law.

Source: President Jackson's Veto Message Regarding the Bank of the United States (1832)

Document E

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Source: King Andrew the First (1832)

Document F

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Source: South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification (1832)

We, therefore, the people of the state of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual operation and effect within the United States, and, more especially, an act entitled “An act in alteration of the several acts imposing duties on imports,” approved on the nineteenth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight and also an act entitled “An act to alter and amend the several acts imposing duties on imports,” approved on the fourteenth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, are unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens; and all promises, contracts, and obligations, made or entered into, or to be made or entered into, with purpose to secure the duties imposed by said acts, and all judicial proceedings which shall be hereafter had in affirmance thereof, are and shall be held utterly null and void.

Document G

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Source: President Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification (1832)

The ordinance is founded, not on the indefeasible right of resisting acts which are plainly unconstitutional, and too oppressive to be endured, but on the strange position that any one State may not only declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution—that they may do this consistently with the Constitution—that the true construction of that instrument permits a State to retain its place in the Union, and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to consider as constitutional…

But reasoning on this subject is superfluous, when our social compact in express terms declares, that the laws of the United States, its Constitution, and treaties made under it, are the supreme law of the land; and for greater caution adds, "that the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

Look, for a moment, to the consequence. If South Carolina considers the revenue laws unconstitutional, and has a right to prevent their execution in the port of Charleston, there would be a clear constitutional objection to their collection in every other port, and no revenue could be collected anywhere; for all imposts must be equal.

Document H

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Source: Cherokee Letter protesting the Treaty of New Etocha, 1836

By the stipulations of this instrument [Treaty of New Etocha], we are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defense. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty.

We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our utterance is paralyzed, when we reflect on the condition in which we are placed, by the audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems with so much dexterity as to impose on the Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated protestations.

Document I

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Document J

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Write your THESIS


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SUPPORT your thesis


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DBQ #2

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Thomas A. Bailey writes that “Grant was an ignorant and confused President, and his eight long years of blunderland are generally regarded as a national disgrace.” C. Van Woodward describes the Grant years as “the all-time low point in statesmanship and political morality in our history.” To what extent do you feel that these judgments are correct?

Question

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Prompt Analysis FormatLet’s apply the prompt analysis format to this question. 1. ESSENCE

2. DEFINITIONS3. PARAMETERS4. DATABASE5. POINT OF VIEW6. INSIGHT7. THESIS8. SUPPORT9. CONCLUSION

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HISTORIANS CORRUPTION INEFFECTIVE?

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HISTORIANS

“Grant was an ignorant and confused President, and his eight long years of blunderland are generally regarded as a national disgrace.”—Thomas A. Bailey

“…the all-time low point in statesmanship and political morality in our history.”—C. Van Woodward

Arthur Schlesinger places him among the failures in his 1948 and 1962 presidential ratings.

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CORRUPTION• Civil Service Commission• Credit Mobilier• Tweed Ring• Whiskey Ring• Gold scandal• “Salary grab”


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INEFFECTIVE?• Led nation through difficult

post-Civil War era• Economic policies• Vetoed Inflation Bill of 1874• Signed Resumption Act• Settled Alabama claims• Prevented two potential wars• Treaty with Hawaii• Helped resolve 1876 election• Appointed first Civil Service

Commission• First steps toward building the

Panama Canal• Enforced Reconstruction and

protected newly freed slaves• Elected twice


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Document A

Source: President Grant's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1869The country having just emerged from a great rebellion, many questions will come before it for settlement in the next four years which preceding Administrations have never had to deal with. In meeting these it is desirable that they should be approached calmly, without prejudice, hate, or sectional pride, remembering that the greatest good to the greatest number is the object to be attained. This requires security of persons, property, and free religious and political opinion in every part of our common country, without regard to local prejudice. All laws to secure these ends will receive my best efforts for their enforcement…

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Source: President Grant’s Second Inaugural Address, 1873

The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be corrected —To this correction I stand committed, so far as Executive influence can avail. Social equality is not a subject to be legislated upon, nor shall I ask that anything be done to advance the social status of the colored man, except to give him a fair chance to develop what there is good in him, give him access to the schools, and when he travels let him feel assured that his conduct will regulate the treatment and fare he will receive.

Document B

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Source: Civil Rights Act of 1875

…all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.

Sec. 2. That any person who shall violate the foregoing section by denying to any citizen, shall, for every such offense, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars to the person...

Sec. 4. That no citizen possessing all other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of the United States, or of any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude…

Document C

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Source: “Salary Grab”—Act of Congress, 1873

AN ACT

Making Appropriations for the legislative, executive and judicial Expenses of the Government for the Year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and seventy-four, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the following sums be, and the same are hereby, appropriated, out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the service of the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and seventy-four, for the objects hereinafter expressed….

Document D

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Source: Specie Resumption Act of 1875

To provide for the resumption of specie payments. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and required… to cause to be coined at the mints of the United States, silver coins of the denominations of ten, twenty-five, and fifty cents, of standard value, and to issue them in redemption of an equal number and amount of fractional currency of similar denominations, or, at his discretion, he may issue such silver coins through the mints, the subtreasuries, public depositories, and post-offices of the United States; and, upon such issue, he is hereby authorized and required to redeem an equal amount of such fractional currency, until the whole amount of such fractional currency outstanding shall be redeemed.

Document E

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Document F

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Source: Treaty of Washington, 1871 …Whereas differences have arisen between the Government of the United States and the Government of Her Britannic Majesty, and still exist, growing out of the acts committed by the several vessels which have given rise to the claims generically known as the Alabama Claims.

And whereas Her Britannic Majesty has authorized Her High Commissioners and Plenipotentiaries to express, in a friendly spirit, the regret felt by Her Majesty's Government for the escape, under whatever circumstances, of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports, and for the depredations committed by those vessels:

Now, in order to remove and adjust all complaints…the High Contracting Parties agree that all the said claims, growing out of acts committed by the aforesaid vessels and generically known as the “Alabama claims,'' shall be referred to a Tribunal of Arbitration to be composed of five Arbitrators, to be appointed in the following manner, that is to say: one shall be named by the President of the United States; one shall be named by Her Britannic Majesty; His Majesty the King of Italy shall be requested to name one; the President of the Swiss Confederation shall be requested to name one; and His Majesty the Emperor of Brazil shall be requested to name one.

Document G

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Source: U.S. business activity before and after Resumption Act,

Document H

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Write your THESIS


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SUPPORT your thesis


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DBQ #3

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Question

Using information from the evidence below as well as your knowledge of the period, to what extent were the social, economic, and political changes in America during World War II permanent?

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Prompt Analysis FormatLet’s apply the prompt analysis format to this question.

1. ESSENCE2. DEFINITIONS3. PARAMETERS4. DATABASE5. POINT OF VIEW6. INSIGHT7. THESIS8. SUPPORT9. CONCLUSION

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SOCIAL ECONOMIC POLITICAL

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SOCIAL

• Casualties, both physical and mental

• Displaced persons• Impact on colonial

peoples• African Americans• Japanese Americans• Women• Demographic shifts

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• New weapons• Expansion of government

powers• Boom for business; full

employment• Huge cost of war• Dislocation of trade• Property damage,

ecological damage• Atomic power• Military-industrial

complex• Technological revolution


ECONOMIC

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POLITICAL• The United Nations• Polarization of the world,

Cold War• Controls on civil liberties• Four terms for FDR• End to isolationism

(“non-entanglement”)• Expansion of presidential

power• Foreign aid• Defeated powers

occupied• Territorial changes• War crimes trials

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Document ASource: Wilma Briggs, "A Farm Girl Plays Professional Baseball”

Had it not been for the war, I never would have played professional baseball. That started because of the war. People didn't have money to go places. Phil Wrigley of the Chicago Cubs was certain that all the men would be drafted, and the major league ballparks would be empty. That's the reason he started that league, the All-American Girls' Professional Baseball League. So, because of the war, I got that chance. That league started in 1943, and I joined it after high school in 1948. Had it not been for the war, that part of my life would never have come to pass. And I think because I went out there and played ball—I met a lot of people from all over the United States, Canada, and Cuba, which I never would have done. I traveled, lived in the best hotels, ate in restaurants, lived in private homes—that's an experience. I think it gave me the courage years later to say, “I think I'll go to college.”

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Document BSource: Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb, lyrics, Rosie the Riveter (1942)

All the day long, whether rain or shine,She's a part of the assembly line.She's making history,Working for victory,Rosie the Riveter.Keeps a sharp lookout for sabotage,Sitting up there on the fuselage.That little girl will do more than a male will do.

Rosie's got a boyfriend, Charlie.Charlie, he's a Marine.Rosie is protecting Charlie,Working overtime on the riveting machine.When they gave her a production “E,”She was as proud as she could be.There's something true about,Red, white, and blue about,Rosie the Riveter.

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Document CSource: That Damned Fence, anonymous poem circulated at the Poston (AZ) Relocation Center

They've sunk the posts deep into the groundThey've strung out wires all the way around.With machine gun nests just over there,And sentries and soldiers everywhere.We're trapped like rats in a wired cage,To fret and fume with impotent rage;Yonder whispers the lure of the night,But that DAMNED FENCE assails our sight.We seek the softness of the midnight air,But that DAMNED FENCE in the floodlight glareAwakens unrest in our nocturnal quest,And mockingly laughs with vicious jest.With nowhere to go and nothing to do,We feel terrible, lonesome, and blue:

That DAMNED FENCE is driving us crazy,Destroying our youth and making us lazy.Imprisoned in here for a long, long time,We know we're punished—though we've committed no crime,Our thoughts are gloomy and enthusiasm damp,To be locked up in a concentration camp.Loyalty we know, and patriotism we feel,To sacrifice our utmost was our ideal,To fight for our country, and die, perhaps;But we're here because we happen to be Japs.We all love life, and our country best,Our misfortune to be here in the West,To keep us penned behind that DAMNED FENCE,Is someone's notion of NATIONAL DEFENSE!

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Document D

Source: GI Bill of Rights, 1944

AN ACT to provide Federal Government aid for the readjustment in civilian life of returning World War II veterans. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the “Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944”.

Chapter IV—Education of VeteransSec. 400. (a) Subsection (f) of section 1, title I, Public Law Numbered 2, Seventy-third Congress, added by the Act of March 24, 1943 (Public Law Numbered 16, Seventy-eighth Congress), is hereby amended to read as follows:“(f) Any person who served in the active military or naval forces on or after September 16, 1940, and prior to the termination of hostilities in the present war, shall be entitled to vocational rehabilitation subject to the provisions and limitations of Veterans Regulation Numbered 1(a), as amended, part VII, or to education or training subject to the provisions and limitations of part VIII.”

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Document E

A. Philip Randolph

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Document F

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Document G

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Document H

Source: Harry S. Truman, Congressional Record, March 12, 1947

The peoples of a number of countries of the world have recently had totalitarian regimes forced upon them against their will… I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destiny in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid, which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.

The world is not static and the status quo is not sacred. But we cannot allow changes in the status quo in violation of the Charter of the United Nations by such methods as coercion, or by such subterfuge as political infiltration. In helping free and independent nations to maintain their freedom, the United States will be giving effect to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations… The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world—and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own Nation.

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Document I

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Source: Harry S. Truman, 1946

Sixteen Hours Ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British ''Grand Slam'' which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form these bombs are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development.

Document J

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Write your THESIS


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SUPPORT your thesis


writing a dbq: ap * u.s. history

Documents

american revolution

essay question

contrast question

issues of race

question state specific

cult of domesticity

lives of women

civil war