home

**American Studies Textbook/DBQ Unit** **Mr. Martin's American Studies**

"It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will determine its outcome." ** -William James **

Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before. -**Jacob A. Riis**

**Assignment details**: For our next unit of study, you will have the opportunity to become an expert about a period in American History. As the expert you have been asked by the Big Money Textbook Company to construct a textbook chapter and an assessment DBQ.

**Product:** **Textbook Chapter-** Each student will select and research an American history topic. He or she will then compose a textbook chapter complete with headings, italicized words, graphics, and a multiple choice/short-answer reading check. All sources will be cited accurately and posted to our class wiki. Your textbook chapter will go through a series of editing sessions with our textbook publishers (Dr. Yutzey, Mrs. Piazza, Mrs. Stutz, Mr. Kerr, and Mr. Martin) and focus groups (fellow students).

**DBQ-** Each student will compose a document based question assessment for the class. This assessment will be used to measure the effectiveness of your chapter and the attentiveness of the audience (classmates). At the end of this unit, each student will draw a topic and then complete the companion DBQ.

** Standard Characteristics of a DBQ **

The documents vary in length and format, and are chosen to illustrate interactions and complexities within the subject matter. The documents should allow the writer do demonstrate the breadth of his/her understanding of the topic. The DBQ can include elements as diverse as **charts, graphs, cartoons**, **paintings and photographs**, as well as written materials like **excerpts from speeches, news articles, editorials, advertisements, letters, poems, short stories, novels and plays**. This gives the writer the chance to showcase his/her knowledge of the time period and the historical issue. To earn a high score it's very important that the writer incorporate information from history textbooks, articles, and primary source material. The emphasis of the DBQ should be on analysis and synthesis, not historical narrative. The DBQ essay will be judged on the quality of the argument (i.e., How well the writer uses his/her background knowledge to interpret and organize the documents into a cohesive argument). The DBQ tests the writer’s ability to analyze and synthesize historical data, and assess verbal, quantitative, or pictorial materials as historical evidence.


 * Requirements for our DBQ: **


 * ** 6 Documents, each a different genre **
 * ** All documents accurately identified (caption and citation) **
 * ** An historical guiding question that requires the student to analyze and synthesize the documents and the information from your textbook chapter **


 * Examples of historical questions: **


 * Directions: ** The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that integrates your interpretation of Documents A-I and your knowledge of the period referred to in the question. High scores will be earned only by essays that both cite key pieces of evidence from the documents and draw on outside knowledge of the period.

Example Question 1: //Analyze the international and domestic challenges the United States faced between 1968 and 1974, and evaluate how President Richard Nixon’s administration responded to them.//

Example Question 2: // In what ways did ideas and values held by Puritans influence the political, economic, and social development of the New England colonies from 1630 through the 1660s? //

**Example Question 3:** //From 1775 to 1830, many African Americans gained freedom from slavery, yet during the same period the institution of slavery expanded. Explain why BOTH of those changes took place. Analyze the ways that BOTH free African Americans and enslaved African Americans responded to the challenges confronting them.//

=Welcome to Your New Wiki!=

Getting Started

 * Click on the edit button above to put your own content on this page.
 * To invite new members, click on **Manage Wiki** and **Invite People**.
 * To change your wiki's colors or theme, click on **Manage Wiki** and **Look and Feel**.
 * To set who can view and edit your wiki, click on **Manage Wiki** and **Permissions**.

Need Help?

 * Click on the help link above to learn more about how to use your wiki.