WHAP Essay Responses
So ... AP timed essays. Let's be honest: they're not really essays (as those should be carefully crafted and ruthlessly revised and edited), but they are responses. In an essay format. Which means you MUST paragraphs. It also means adherence to the stated rubrics (which appear on the essay prompts). Remember: the readers know and understand that these are timed responses, and that you have NO IDEA what might be asked, and that you didn't have time to revise or edit your essay.
All that said, it's up to you to make your essay cohesive (it should make some sense) and legible (it should be fairly easily read) so that the reader can award you the points you deserve based on your response. Need a quick review of how to deconstruct an essay prompt? Check out this page.
All that said, it's up to you to make your essay cohesive (it should make some sense) and legible (it should be fairly easily read) so that the reader can award you the points you deserve based on your response. Need a quick review of how to deconstruct an essay prompt? Check out this page.
The LEQ
The Long Essay Question (LEQ) assesses a student's ability to address one of four historical thinking skills (CCOT, Comparison, Causation, or Periodization) as well as their content knowledge in a given time frame and for a specific region or regions. The maximum number of points possible on the LEQ is 6. Response organization is important; the thesis-- which fully responds to the prompt-- can only earn credit if it appears in the introduction or in the conclusion of the essay. A student may organize the body of the essay in any way they choose, but this organization should clearly reflect the historical thinking skill assessed (i.e., if you're writing a CCOT, you should have at least one paragraph detailing continuities and another detailing change over time; if you're writing a periodization essay, you should have one paragraph describing the situation before the event, one paragraph describing the situation during the event, and a third paragraph describing the situation after the event). There is no required length of the essay, but a typical LEQ runs about 2 handwritten pages (1 page front & back). College Board suggests that students reserve 40 minutes of their given 100 minute writing time for planning and writing their LEQ. The DBQ
The Document-Based Question (DBQ) assesses a student's ability to work with documents. The students respond to a prompt through reading and organizing the 7 documents which accompany the prompt. Additionally, a student needs to incorporate their own knowledge about the time period/concept in question in their response. As with the LEQ, response organization is important; the thesis-- which fully responds to the prompt-- can only earn credit if it appears in the introduction or in the conclusion of the essay. A student may organize the body of the essay in any way they choose, but since the rubric for the DBQ requires a student to demonstrate argument development (the ability to identify and address connections between documents as they respond to the prompt), a good organizational rule to follow is to "group" the documents which fit together into one paragraph. There is no typical length of a DBQ response, but given the documents, a typical DBQ usually runs between 3 and 4 handwritten pages (1 1/2 to 2 pages front-and-back). College Board suggests that students take 60 minutes of their given 100 minutes to plan and write their DBQ. |