Page 53 - 2024-bfw-wiesner-hanks-ahws14e-proofs

You will also need to consider the perspective of the documents. As we discussed above, every primary
source has a point of view, purpose, historical situation, and audience. Your answer will need to
consider this for at least three of the documents you discuss, and relate this to the argument you
are making.
Consider the example of the photo depicting European immigrants to the United States at the turn of
the twentieth century on page 530 in Chapter 14. Students tend to view a document like this as a
straightforward factual record. After all, we often hear that “pictures don’t lie.” But the picture was
taken for a particular purpose by someone who decided to arrange the shot so that the women in light
clothing are in the center of the picture looking up at the camera. So it’s worth asking why the photog- Historical Thinking Skills: A Primer
rapher took the picture in this way. What purpose might this picture serve? What message might it
convey to someone who saw it at the time it was taken? How might it misrepresent — or represent in
a limited way — the realities of the immigrant experience?
this sample.
Purposes can be stated explicitly by the maker of a source, or they can be determined later by those
Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
analyzing the source, including you as you write your answer to a DBQ. Sometimes the purposes given
Worth Publishers.
by the maker and by later historians are different from one another. For example, during the Renais-
sance, European city governments issued laws limiting what people could spend on clothing or family
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.
celebrations such as weddings. The governments stated that the purpose of these laws was to restrict
Uncorrected proofs have been used in
wasteful spending, but later historians studying these laws have determined that their purpose was also
to make distinctions between social classes sharper. For many of the documents you will be using to
answer a DBQ, you will need to make your best judgment about the purpose, just as historians do.
by Bedford, Freeman &

EXERCISE: In every chapter of this book, the authors have included a feature that is
exactly like a DBQ: “AP® Thinking Like a Historian.” Look at “AP® Thinking Like a
Historian” in Chapter 4 on pages 136–137, which is titled “Social Discipline in the
Reformation.” In the sixteenth century both Protestant leaders (those who followed the
ideas of Martin Luther and other reformers) and Catholic leaders (those who
Copyright ©
continued to accept the authority of the pope and to support traditional doctrines)
wanted people to understand the basics of their particular version of Christianity. They
Distributed
also wanted people to lead proper, godly lives. The feature provides six original
sources — some from Protestants and some from Catholics — that show you how
leaders tried to meet these goals and what success they had. Read these sources,
along with the “Analyzing the Evidence” questions that appear beneath them, which
can help you think about the sources and the topic. When you have done this, you can
try to answer the “Putting It All Together” questions for this feature: “How and why did
religious and secular authorities try to shape people’s behavior and instill morality and
piety? Were they successful?” These two questions will make up the “prompt.”
To develop an answer that follows AP® guidelines, you need to include specific
elements. Your answer must have a thesis that addresses all parts of the question.
Taking just the first question, your thesis must address both how and why. Your thesis
could thus read: “Religious and secular authorities tried to shape people’s behavior by
[here you would summarize information from the sources about what they did], and
they did this because [here you would summarize information from the sources and
from the chapter about their motivations].”
You also need to go beyond the documents to situate your argument within a
broader historical context, so to answer this question effectively you should incorporate
information from throughout Chapter 4 and perhaps other chapters in the book.

HTS-17

01_howsap14e_48443_fm_i_HTS-18.indd 17 17/10/23 3:16 PM