Doing the FRQ

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Doing the FRQ

• Free Response Questions

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Types of Essay Questions

• Document Based Question (DBQ)
• Based on eight to ten primary sources plus
  outside knowledge
• Free Response Question (FRQ)
• Four questions
• Two pre-1870 (select one)
• Two Post 1870 (select one)

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What Are the AP Essay Graders Looking For?

• An answer to the question
• Strong thesis.
• Reasonable outlinewell-organized.
• A straight forward answer.
• An understanding of the historical period(s).
• Analysisability to interpret history.
• Factual Details that support thesis
  analysisevidence.
• Originality of historical thought.

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Before You Start Writing

• Read the question carefully
• Brainstorm for a couple of minutes
• Write facts, concepts and/or ideas that come to
  mind
• Decide on your thesis (point of argument)
• Organize information to fit thesis

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Part 1 Understanding the Essay Prompt
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Step 1
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• Read the entire prompt, every word of it. Reread
  it till you understand it.
• Having read the whole prompt, circle or underline
  the VERBS. These words will give you your task.
• Look for and mark any CONJUNCTIONS and circle or
  underline them.

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Step 2 Underline any

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why
• How

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Common FRQ verbs questions

• Compare
• Analyze
• Apply
• Assess (the validity)
• Caused
• Affected
• Changed (altered, grew)

• How
• Why
• In what way
• To what extent

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What are you being asked to do?

• Go back and look carefully at the VERB in the
  prompt. This word will tell you what kind of
  question is being asked and what you are expected
  to do.
• How did the economic, geographic, and social
  factors encourage the growth of slavery as an
  important part of the economy of the southern
  colonies between 1607 and 1775?

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Step 3

• What is/are the time frame(s) of the question?
• How did the economic, geographic, and social
  factors encourage the growth of slavery as an
  important part of the economy of the southern
  colonies between 1607 and 1775?

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Step 4

• What choices are you given within the question?
• How did the economic, geographic, and social
  factors encourage the growth of slavery as an
  important part of the economy of the southern
  colonies between 1607 and 1775?

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Step 5

• Does the prompt tell you how to organize your
  essay?
• How did the economic, geographic, and social
  factors encourage the growth of slavery as an
  important part of the economy of the southern
  colonies between 1607 and 1775?

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Commonly used verbs verb phrases

• Analyze
• Explain how AND why something occurred. Any
  question that uses how and/or why is an
  analysis question even if the word analyze is
  not in the prompt.
• Assess the validity
• How true is the statement. The statement doesnt
  have to be all true it can be true in one
  instance or circumstance and false in another.

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Types of Questions

• Evaluate
• Which factor was most important. You usually
  need to rank several events or factors and
  specify which is most and which is least
  significant.
• To what extent
• This prompt frequently requires you to specify a
  cause and effect relationship and then state
  which causes were more important.

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Types of Questions

• Compare AND contrast
• To do this correctly you need to discuss BOTH
  similarities AND differences between two events
  or periods. It is important to both in a
  balanced way without shortchanging either.
• Discuss or Consider
• These are frequently used in free response
  prompts. They should be written as analysis
  essays.

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Step 6 Define terms in prompt

• Discuss the changing ideals of American womanhood
  between the American Revolution 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.
• What terms do you need to explain in this
  question?

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Part 2 Organization
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Step 7 Organization

• Sketch out a quick, informal outline of how you
  are going to answer the question.
• For instance, if you were writing the following
  prompt. . .
• Compare and contrast United States foreign policy
  after the First World War and after the Second
  World War. Consider the periods 1919-1928 and
  1945-1950.

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• Jot down a simple outline like the one at the
  right.
• List things that were similar in BOTH periods,
• List the differences in BOTH periods.
• Your essay would have 3 body paragraphs as
  indicated by the circles

1919-1928
1945-1950
similarities
differences
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1919-1928
1945-1950

• Or you might have two longer and more involved
  paragraphs as indicated by the two ovals.

similarities
differences
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Question 17 Organization

• Geographic

• Social Factors

• Economic

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Filling out your outline.

• Organize your thinking BEFORE you write.
• Doesnt need to be a long process
• Decide 2-4 things you need to discuss
• Organize the facts under those headings
• Check to see that you balance your answergive
  each part equal time.

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Dont get hung up the format of the outline.
List facts
List facts
Social
List facts
List facts
List facts
List facts
Political
List facts
List facts
List facts
Economic
List facts
List facts
List facts
List facts
List facts
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Part 3 Thesis Statement
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Difference between an English History thesis
statement.

• English
• Responds to a prompt.
• Gives the main idea of the essay.
• The economic, geographic, and social factors
  unique to the southern colonies encouraged the
  growth of slavery.

• History
• Answers the question.
• Specifies how why the answer is correct.
• Although the geography of the southern colonies
  enabled the growing of cash crops, the profits to
  be made from tobacco and rice provided the
  incentive for the gradual enslavement of Africans
  between 1607 and 1775.

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Common Openings

• To what extent
• How much, to what degree, what quantity
• Assess
• Determine degree of accuracy of a given statement
• Analyze
• Separate, breakdown into parts, show
  relationships
• Evaluate
• Judge, value, rate, rank, show relationships
• Compare
• Similarities differences between places,
  events, time periods.

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Part 3 Summary

• Thesis is a single declarative sentence that
  answers the prompt with your opinion.
• Thesis must address the complexity in any prompt.
  
• Thesis should be the last sentence in the
  introduction paragraph.
• Good idea to include qualifying conjunction such
  asAlthough

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Part 4 Analysis
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Describing Versus Analyzing

• Lower scores are given to essays that only
  describe or narrate what happened.
• Higher scores are given to essays that also
  analyze.

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Analysis Means

• The ability to demonstrate the knowledge of WHY
  AND HOW rather than a mere knowledge of the
  historical facts.

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Analysis Means

• Going beyond providing the reader with historical
  information by making relevant inferences,
  connections and associations.
• Seeing the big picture.

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Analysis Demonstrates

• That a student has a more in depth understanding
  of the essay topic and a much higher level of
  thinking.

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Analyzing

• Distinguish
• Identify
• Differentiate
• Appraise
• Compare
• Contrast
• Justify

• Criticize
• Debate
• Question
• Relate
• Solve
• Examine
• Categorize

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Analysis

• The nonviolent approach to combat racial
  injustice proved to be the most effective
  approach in helping African Americans gain the
  respect of legislators as well as bring new
  legislation.
• Therefore, it can be said that nonviolent
  demonstrations among African Americans brought
  the most change in national legislation.
• Therefore, the aggression and violence of the
  civil rights movement beginning in the late 1960s
  did not result in changes for the better, but
  actually caused a stop to progress in civil
  rights.

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Analysis

• The geography of the south made it possible for
  colonists in that region to grow cash crops.
• As fortunes were made growing tobacco and rice,
  colonial greed for land exceeded their existing
  labor supply (indentured servants).
• This greed along with the close proximity of
  slavery in the Caribbean, caused the gradual
  enslavement of Africans in the colonies as seen
  in the laws enacted between 1607 and 1775.
• This clearly demonstrates that racism was the by
  product of colonial greed.

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Write with clarity and confidence!

• Be definite. Your thesis should ANSWER the
  prompt with your opinion.
• Having brainstormed then organized specific
  facts, start each paragraph with a clear topic
  sentence.
• Refer to specific facts to support your thinking.
  Stick to your structure, refer to your outline
  as you write

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General Writing Guidelines

• Answer the question they asked.
• Write clearly and neatly in pen.
• Use 3rd person past tense.
• Stick to your outline.
• Define your terms. Dont assume your audience
  knows what you mean. Clarify and watch your use
  of pronouns.
• Use transitions words to show where you are
  going.
• Try to prove one big picture idea per paragraph.
• Evidence, evidence, evidenceinclude as many
  facts as you can.
• Make sure the first and last paragraphs directly
  answer the question.

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The Chronological Argument

• Certain questions lend themselves to this
• Transitions between paragraphs essential
• Paragraph two leads to paragraph three which
  leads to paragraph four
• Opening paragraph sets the path
• Closing paragraph restate essay question and
  answer it

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How to Write the Essays

• Read the question thoroughly.
• Analyze and breakdown the question
• Organize your answer
• Write your thesis.
• Fill in your outline with facts that prove your
  thesis.
• Budget your time.

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Essay Choice 2

• Compare the ways in which religion shaped the
  development of colonial society (to 1740) in TWO
  of the following regions
• New England Chesapeake Middle Atlantic

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How religion shaped colonial society.

• New England
• Colony
• Religion
• Facts

• Middle Atlantic
• Colony
• Religion
• Facts

• Chesapeake
• Colony
• Religion
• Facts

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How religion shaped colonial society.

• Thesis Statement