Regents Essay Strategies and Tips

Thematic Essay Overview
To successfully write a thematic essay response, one must focus on the task. Each of the task items must be addressed in the written essay response in order to receive full credit.
A generic scoring rubric is provided which explains how the thematic essay response will be graded. The maximum possible score is a five; the lowest possible score is a zero.
To earn the maximum score possible, consider the following steps for writing a thematic essay response:
1. Pre-Writing
2. Introduction
3. Body Paragraphs
4. Conclusion
DBQ Essay Overview
To successfully write a DBQ essay response, one must focus on the task. Each of the task items must be addressed in the written essay response in order to receive full credit.
A generic scoring rubric is provided which explains how the DBQ essay response will be graded. The maximum possible score is a five; the lowest possible score is a zero.
To earn the maximum score possible, consider the following steps for writing a DBQ essay response:
1. Pre-Writing
2. Introduction
3. Body Paragraphs
4. Conclusion

You may use the following acronyms to help you.

PERSIA

Political

Economic

Religious

Social

Intellectual

Artistic

SOAPSTone

TABASCO- A Method of Analyzing Documents

Wednesday October 25th 2006, 1:23 pm
Filed under: Study Skills

As you read a document, you need to analyze it to extract as much meaning from the document as possible. This way of analyzing a document also helps you generate the outside information that is so importasnt for a good score on a DBQ.

Use this strategy as one method to quickly assess and analyze the important information. I created this method in place of the SOAPS or SOAPSTone method from the College Board because I think it makes you do a deeper analysis of the document.

Topic: (What is the document about? NOT the Title!) – 10 points

Author: (Information about the author which is relevant to the document; who he is, what she did, groups to which he belonged, etc) – 15 points

Bias: (Is the information presented here unbiased? Does info about the author suggest any mindset present?) – 10 points

Audience: (When was the document written, and who was the intended audience? There can be a primary and secondary audience.) – 15 points

Summary: (What are the main arguments or points the author makes? What conclusions can be drawn from this? What is the historical significance of the document?) – 50 points

COntext: (What is the context? What is going on at the time of the document that relates to it or influences it)

5Ws

CLUES

5 Themes of Geography

THIEVES