Unit 4 DBQ
WORLD HISTORY PROJECTAP/ LESSON 4.8ACTIVITYASSESSMENT: UNIT 4 DBQUnless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Credit: “Assessment: Unit 4 DBQ”, OER Project, https://www.oerproject.com/1PurposeThis assessment helps prepare you for the document-based questions (DBQs) you will encounter on the AP® World History: Modern exam. It will also give you a better understanding of your skills development and overall progress related to constructing an argument, interpreting historical documents, and employing the historical reasoning processes you are using in this course.ProcessDay 1In this activity, you’re going to prepare to respond to a DBQ, or document-based question. In this course, document-based questions give you a prompt or question along with seven source documents, and you’ll use the information in those documents (and perhaps additional knowledge you have) to respond to the prompt. Your responses will be written in essay format and will usually be five to six paragraphslong.This DBQ asks you to respond to the following prompt: Develop an argument that evaluates the extent to which economic developments that occurred between 1450 and 1750 impacted social structures over time. To make sure you’re clear on what you’re being asked, take out the Question Parsing Tool. Work with your classmates to deconstruct the prompt.Next, take out the DBQ and relevant historical thinking tool to help you analyze the documents. Take a look at the document library. As you do with the Three Close Reads process, quickly skim the documents for gist. Then, do a closer read of each one. For each document, write down the information you think you might use in your essay. You must provide source information for at least two of the documents in your essay. Write your ideas on the relevant tool as you work through the documents. Discuss your ideas with the class.Now, come up with a major claim or thesis statement that responds to the prompt. Use the information from your thinking tool to help you come up with an idea. What you have written should help you support your claim. One common mistake students make when responding to a DBQ is not directly answering the prompt—so, in creating your thesis, make sure that it directly answers and is relevant to the prompt.Finally, it’s time to contextualize. Remember that ALL historical essays require you to contextualize. If you need to refreshyour memory, contextualization is the process of placing a document, an event, a person, or process within its larger historical setting, and includes situating it in time, space, and sociocultural setting. In this case, you are contextualizing the documents. Contextualization will often come at the beginning of your essay, or at least in the first paragraph, either before or after your thesis statement. As needed, you can use the Contextualization Tool for this part of the process.Day 2This second day is your writing day. Feel free to use your tools and notes from any prewriting work you completed as you craft your essay response. Make sure you have a copy of the WHP DBQ Writing Rubric available to remind you of what’s important to include in your essay. And
WORLDHISTORY PROJECT AP / LESSON 4.8ACTIVITYASSESSMENT: UNIT 4 DBQ2don’t forget to contextualize! In doing so, think of the entire time period, not just the time immediately preceding the historical event or process you are writing about. Your teacher will give you a time limit for completing your five-to six-paragraph essay responding to the DBQ.UNIT 4 DBQDirections: This question is based on the accompanying documents. In your response, make sure to include the following:oThesis/major claim –respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a clear line of reasoning.oContextualization –describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt. Think of the entire time period, not just the time immediately preceding the historical event or process.oEvidence and use of documents –use at least four of the documents to support your thesis or argument.oOutside evidence –use at least one additional piece of historical evidence (outside of those found in the document collection) that is relevant to your argument and the prompt.oSourcing –for at least two documents, include how or why the source’s historical situation, audience, purpose, and/or point of view is relevant to your argument.oComplexity -demonstrate a complex understanding of the topic by using advanced argumentation and/or effective use of evidence.Develop an argument that evaluates the extent to which economic developments that occurred between 1450 and 1750 impacted social structures over time.
WORLDHISTORY PROJECT AP / LESSON 4.8ACTIVITYASSESSMENT: UNIT 4 DBQ3Document 1Source: Thackston, Wheeler M., ed. The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor. New York: Smithsonian Institution, 1996 (88, 109).Among the inhabitants of the wilderness in Andizhan are the Chakrak people. A numerous folk, numbering five to six thousand households, they live in the mountains between Fergana and Kashghar. They have many horses and sheep, as well as yaks instead of cattle. Since the mountains are inaccessible and located on the borderlands, the people are unaccustomed to paying tribute—which Qasim Beg was dispatched with an army to obtain from them. He went there and took close to twenty thousand sheep and a thousand orfifteen hundred horses to be distributed among his men. ...The city of Samarkand is an amazingly ornamented city. One peculiarity here is found in few other cities: every trade has a separate market, and they are not commingled. This is a wonderful custom. There are excellent bakeries and cook shops. The best paper in the world comes from Samarkand. ... Another product of Samarkand is red velvet, which is exported everywhere.Document 2This essay was written by the prominent Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) scholar-official Zhang Han (1511–1593). Source: Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, ed. Chinese Civilization and Society: A Sourcebook. Second Edition. New York: The Free Press, 1993 (216-17).Those who become merchants eat fine food and wear elegant clothes. ... Opportunistic persons attracted by their wealth offer toserve them. Pretty girls in beautiful long-sleeved dresses and delicate slippers play string and wind instruments for them and compete to please them.Merchants boast that their wisdom and ability are such as to give them a free hand in affairs. They believe that they know all the possible transformations in the universe and therefore can calculate all the changes in the human world, and that the rise and fall of prices are under their command. They are confident that they will not make one mistake in a hundred in their calculations. These merchants do not know how insignificant their wisdom and ability really are. ...The [ancient] Book of Zhou says: “If farmers do not work, there will be an insufficiency of food; if craftsmen do not work, there will be an insufficiency of tools; if merchants do not work, circulation of the three necessities will be cut off, which will cause foodand materials tobe insufficient.”
WORLDHISTORY PROJECT AP / LESSON 4.8ACTIVITYASSESSMENT: UNIT 4 DBQ4Document 3This excerpt was written by Vasco da Gama (c. 1460–1524). Source: Thatcher, Oliver J., ed. The Library of Original Sources. Volume V. Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907 (29).1498. Calicut. [Arrival.] That night (May 20) we anchored two leagues from the city of Calicut, and we did so because our pilot mistook Capua, a town at that place, for Calicut. Still further there is another town called Pandarani. We anchored about a league and a half from the shore. After we were at anchor, four boats approached us from the land, who asked of what nation we were. We told them, and they then pointed out Calicut to us.On the following day (May 21) these same boats came again alongside, when the captain-major sent one of the convicts to Calicut, and those with whom he went took him to two Moors from Tunis, who could speak Castilian and Genoese. The first greeting that hereceived was in these words: “May the Devil take thee! What brought you hither?” They asked what he sought so far away from home, and he told them that we came in search of Christians and of spices ... When he had eaten he returned to the ships, accompaniedby one of the Moors, who was no sooner on board, than he said these words: “A lucky venture, a lucky venture! Plenty of rubies, plenty of emeralds! You owe great thanks to God, for having brought you toa country holding such riches!” We were greatly astonished to hear his talk, for we never expected to hear our language spoken so far away from Portugal.Document 4This excerpt written by Thomas Mun (1571–1641), a director of the British East India company. Source: Mun, Thomas. England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade, 1664. New York: Macmillan and Co, 1895 (2, 7-8, 26).[My Son] it is now fit that I say something of the Merchant, which I hope in due time shall be thy Vocation ... for the Merchant is worthily called The Steward of the Kingdom’s Stock, by way of Commerce with other Nations; a work of no less Reputation than Trust, which ought to be performed with great skill and conscience, that so the private gain may ever accompany the public good. And because the nobleness of this Profession may the better stir up thy desires and endeavors to obtain those abilities which may affect it worthily, I will briefly set down the excellent qualities which are required in a perfect Merchant. ...... The ordinary means therefore to increase our wealth and treasure is by Foreign Trade, wherein we must ever observe this rule; to sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value. ... By this order duly kept in our trading, we may rest assured that the Kingdom shall be enriched yearly two hundred thousand pounds, which must be brought to us in so much Treasure; because that part of our stock which is not returned to us in wares must necessarily be brought home in treasure. ... But on the contrary there are many Countries which may yield us very profitable trade for our money, which otherwise afford us no trade at all, because they have no use of our wares ...
WORLDHISTORY PROJECT AP / LESSON 4.8ACTIVITYASSESSMENT: UNIT 4 DBQ5Document 5Note on place names: Farra is in what is today far western Afghanistan, near the border with Iran (Persia). Source: “Journey of Richard Steel and John Crowther, from Agimere, in India, to Ispahan, in Persia, in the Years 1615, and 1616.” In A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time. Volume IX. Edited by Robert Kerr, ed. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1824 (155).Farra is a small town, surrounded by a high wall of bricks dried in the sun, as are all the castles and most of the buildings in this country, and is of a square form, about a mile in circuit. It has a handsome bazar or market-place, vaulted over head to keep out the rain, and in which all kinds of necessaries and commodities are sold. It is situated in a fertile soil, having plenty of water, without which nothing can be raised in this country; and it is wonderful to see with what labor and ingenious industry they bring water to every spot of good ground, which is but seldom to be found here, often carrying it three or four miles in trenches underground. At this town, all merchants going into Persia must remain for seven, eight, or ten days; and here the king’s treasurer sees all their packs weighed, estimating the value of their commodities ... and exacts a duty of three percent ad valorem on that estimate. On their way into Persia, merchants are used with much favor,lest they should make complaints to the king, who will have merchants kindly treated; but on their return into India, they are treated with extreme rigor, being searched to the very skin for money, as it is death to transport any gold or silver coin from Persia, except that of the reigning king. They likewise look narrowly for horses and slaves, neither of which are allowed to be taken out of the country.Document 6This was written by an author described as John Barbot, an agent for the French Royal Company of Africa and Islands of America, who traveled to the west coast of Africa, in 1678 and 1682. Source: Barbot, John (Jean). “A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea.” In A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 4. Edited by Thomas Astley and John Churchill. London, 1732 (326, 339).As the slaves come down to Fida from the inland country, they are put into a booth, or prison, built for that purpose ... and when the Europeans are to receive them, they are brought out into a large plain, where the surgeons examine every part of every one of them, to the smallest member, men and women being all stark naked. Such as are allowed good and sound, are set on one side, and the othersby themselves; which slavesso rejected are there called Mackrons, being above thirty five years of age, or defective in their limbs, eyes or teeth; or grown grey, or that have the venereal disease, or any other imperfection ... each of the others, which have passed asgood, is marked on the breast, with a red-hot iron, imprinting the mark of the French, English, or Dutch companies, that so each nation may distinguish their own ...The branded slaves, after this, are returned to their former booth ... with bread and water, which is all their allowance. There they continue sometimes ten or fifteen days, till the sea is still enough to send them aboard... and when it is so, the slaves are carried off by parcels ......One thing is to be taken notice of by sea-faring men, that these Fida and Ardra slaves are of all the others, the most apt to revolt aboard ships ... and will therefore watch all opportunities to deliver themselves ... To prevent which, it is necessary to observe exactly, the directions I propose to give in the supplement to this book, both for managing slaves, and subsisting them properly in their transportation at sea; as also for preventing their revolt and mutiny.
WORLDHISTORY PROJECT AP / LESSON 4.8ACTIVITYASSESSMENT: UNIT 4 DBQ6Document 7This 1665 image shows the Dutch settlement on the Banda Islands (present-day Indonesia) including Fort Nassau, an outpost of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in the distance. The Dutch built the fort in 1609 following their conquest of the Banda Islandsin which thousands of the local population were massacred. Source: Vingboons, Johannes. “’Atchijn’ Gezicht in vogelvlucht op Atchijn/Banda Aceh, Indonesië, 1665.” Dutch National Archives, public domain.
WORLDHISTORY PROJECT AP / LESSON 4.8ACTIVITYASSESSMENT: UNIT 4 DBQ7Question Parsing ToolDirections: Follow the steps to parse the prompt you are presented with. Use the key at the bottom to help you with the historical reasoning process and composition questions.1.Prompt:2.Rewrite the prompt in your own words:3.Periodization: What is the time periodyou are being asked to consider? Write out the years if you are given something in terms of century (for example, twentieth century = 1900s).4.Location: What areas of the world are included in this prompt?5.Topic: What is the main topic being asked about in this prompt?6.AP Theme: What AP theme is the prompt asking you to address as part of your response? Please explain your reasoning. PIECES is a helpful reminder for the AP themes.
WORLDHISTORY PROJECT AP / LESSON 4.8ACTIVITYASSESSMENT: UNIT 4 DBQ87.Historical reasoning process: What historical reasoning process is this prompt asking you to engage in? Provide justification for why you chose the one you did.8.Composition: What is the prompt stem asking you to do as part of your response? Remember the prompt stem is usually a verb.KeyHistorical Reasoning ProcessWords/Phrases to Look ForCausationCause, effect, led to, lead to, emergence, resulted, bring about, give rise to, be the cause of, result in, produce, generate, spawn, precipitate, prompt, induce, promote, foster, provoke, triggerComparisonSimilarities, differences, compare, contrast, set side-by-side, juxtapose, differentiate, liken, equateCCOTContinuities, changes, continuation, persistence, consistent, over time, two points in timePrompt Stem ExamplesWhat It’s Asking in Simpler LanguageTo what extentWeigh, evaluate, assessEvaluate, assessHow much—needs a quantitative answer/thesis/claim (Note: A quantitative answer is one that includes an amount or a number. For example: a lot, a little)Analyze, developDescribe and explainArgue, argumentMake a claim