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Document-Based Questions: State Education Department Web Site

New York State Social Studies Standards

The document-based essay question on June's global history and geography Regents may be needlessly stressing out test-takers.

Bill McKee, a member of the Brockport Teachers Association, says students need to see the DBQ as doable.

"We have a tendency to make it sound like it needs to be terribly complicated when it really isn't," he said.

For nearly one-third of their total grade, high school students taking the upcoming global history Regents will be asked to look at six to eight documents - historical passages, maps, photos, eyewitness accounts and the like - all tied to a particular issue or historic theme.

They must first answer a series of questions about each document. Worth 15 percent of the grade of the exam, these short-answer questions are designed to create a platform or "scaffold" to help students write an essay.

Students construct the essay by combining their outside knowledge with information contained in the documents - for another 15 percent of their grade.

While much attention has focused on the June launch of the new global history Regents Exam, the use of DBQs cuts across all grade levels. In November, the state's social studies pilot test for grade 5 will include a document-based essay question (see related article).

Twenty years ago, Alice Grant, a member of the Pelham TA, helped pioneer the use of DBQs in Advanced Placement classes. Grant, supervisor of social studies at Pelham High School in Westchester County, says DBQs provide an "authentic" assessment.

Easing DBQ anxiety

"They measure not only what students have learned," said Grant, "but also the intellectual habits they've developed in the process and whether they can apply those skills to completely new information they haven't seen before."

McKee, who teaches history at Brockport High School in Monroe County, agrees. "This is a great way for kids to become critical thinkers and to learn to use what they know and what they've come across - and to put the two together."

DBQs force students to work and think like historians and social scientists, according to classroom veterans like Susan Owens, who teaches global history at Columbia High in the Rensselaer County community of East Greenbush.

"If we want students to do anything authentic or real-life in terms of history, they should be able to take the raw materials - the documents - analyze them, combine them with information that they've studied and put together a cohesive piece of writing," said Owens, a member of the East Greenbush TA who chairs the district's K-12 social studies department.

Cynthia Yantz, of the Freeport TA on Long Island, said teachers can help students by working on structuring their time. Yantz has spent the past two years with her ninth- and 10th-graders focusing on DBQs.

To help ease DBQ anxiety, New York Teacher asked veteran social studies teachers for suggestions on preparing students. They recommend:

Use the documents correctly. Remind students that the essay must be document-supported, not document-

driven. "Essays should be about their knowledge of a topic, using documents to prove that they're right," said Yantz. McKee tells his students to ask themselves, "How would I answer this question if there were no documents?" Also, have students use as many documents as possible and specifically refer to documents they use. A rule of thumb: Use at least one more than half the number of documents provided. If eight documents are provided, a top response should refer to at least five.

Work with an outline. Call it a matrix, a grid or just a box, but encourage students to create some type of visual outline to reference to be sure their essays are well structured and incorporate all needed documents and outside information. McKee has his students write a thesis and three factors they will develop to prove their thesis. Once they've chosen their factors, they create a grid that lists the documents across the top and the factors down the left side and use this to craft a response to the essay question. Owens has students outline each paragraph in the body of the essay by charting the topic of the paragraph, "what I know" about the topic, and "what the documents show me."

Add some color. After students have written a practice essay, have them take three different-colored highlighters and mark the three "must-haves" in every document-based essay: the document references, the outside information that the student brings to the exam and the thesis, which should be part of every paragraph. The most complete essays show a balance of colors.

Remember, however, that while this is good for practice, highlighters are not allowed on the test.

Work together. Take an interdisciplinary approach to essay-writing skills. Because the ability to write clearly is key to success in writing document-based essays, it's important to be working closely with English teachers, according to Joe Corr, a 25-year teaching veteran who now supervises social studies in Albany County's North Colonie schools.

Teach the visuals. Charts, graphs and maps are among the documents most likely to show up on the global studies Regents. In class, use them at every opportunity so students will know how to extract the information they need.

Avoid absolutes. Every test-taker can have a different take on the essay topic and still be correct. So it's best to avoid "absolute" words and phrases, such as always, never, every or all. Likewise, encourage the use of transitional words and phrases, such as however, still and furthermore.

Identify the task. Have students highlight or underline the task or tasks they are being asked to perform in the essay question, such as compare and contrast, discuss, identify, illustrate, explain and evaluate.

Brainstorm the topic. Grant suggests students individually "brainstorm" the topic or era, writing down as many facts as they can recall about the topic and time period. If they do this before reading the documents, it can help them identify what necessary information is missing from each of the documents.

Don't make it personal. The best essay writers will not refer to themselves, the reader or the paper itself.

End on the right note. The rubrics stress introductions and conclusions. When students are rushed, Yantz warns, "they tend to leave out conclusions."

- Strachan

For more info

• To learn more about document-based questions and the global history Regents Exam in June, visit the State Education Department's Web site at www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/dbq.ssindex.html.

• The Capital District Council for the Social Studies will sponsor an April 27 workshop with Judy Bywater, a member of Cobleskill-Richmondville Teachers Association, to help prepare elementary students for DBQs. To register, contact Joe Corr at (518) 785-5511 or e-mail him at dcorr@ncolonie.org.