As my AP European History students have their first full-length DBQ essay coming up this week, I had a few requests to make a video about approaching and writing those essays as I did for the AP European History FRQs.
While we’ve done a bunch of practice and discussion of this skill in class, I thought the suggestion was a good one, so I went ahead and created a video that students can consult not only in preparation for their essay this week, but also as we move closer to the exam in May.
One of the suggestions that I got in the comments to my FRQ video tutorial post was to break down the video into shorter segments so that students can focus in on the areas where they’d like additional clarification and review. I thought the suggestion was a good one, as navigating even that nine minute video can be a hassle, so I broke this video tutorial into a five-part playlist with each video focused on one of the steps of writing the DBQ.
I used the released question about the German Peasants’ Revolt for my examples in the video, as we had used those documents in class and it addressed a topic that we’ve already studied in-depth by this point of the year. As I do in class, I frame the approach to the AP European DBQ as almost like putting together a puzzle — an analogy one of my students used this week that I think it really apt. While I didn’t use that analogy explicitly in the video, I think it carries through in the way I’ve structured my explanations and broken the process down into “steps.”
As with before, I welcome any feedback or thoughts on how to further improve this type of “flipped” instruction.
The History Channel This Is Not... 