Document Based Writing

As the freshmen return from the holiday break, they will starting a new project in World History II. They will be learning how to write Document Based Questions, or DBQ's. These are essays that are written in history classes and that are written after reading documents from a specific time period. The question is based within that same time period, and in a standardized test setting, the essay is timed. Mr Garcia will allow the students to work on it in class and after.

Documents can be anything: a letter, a picture, a speech, a political cartoon, a poem, an excerpt from a book, etc.

An acronym for writing based off the documents is SOAP.

• S- Who is the speaker? What is their point of view?
• O- What is the occasion? What is happening? 
• A- Who is the audience? In the time period, who would've read/heard this?
• P- What is the purpose? Why is this being written?