An Opportunity for Students to Create Their Own APUSH-Style SAQs

With these SAQs to relate to various primary sources (writings and speeches) usually presented to the students when teaching the time period 1492–1865

In terms of the time period 1607 to 1865, the APUSH-CED expressly calls on students to learn about each of the following primary sources.

• Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
• Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of independence
• The Gettysburg Address
• The Emancipation Proclamation
• The USSC’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson
• The 13th Amendment
• The 14th Amendment
• The 15th Amendment

With the above in mind, my APUSH students find value in trying to create a few SAQs of their own.

If you’re an APUSH teacher wanting to provide your students with a similar opportunity, just one suggestion-–be sure to have your students phrase their questions using the SAQ question stems that CB most commonly employs.

• Briefly describe one major similarity between
• Briefly describe one major difference between
• Briefly describe one specific historical difference between
• Briefly describe one specific historical similarity between
• Briefly explain how one specific historical event
• Briefly explain how one specific historical development
• Briefly describe one perspective
• Briefly explain one historical perspective
• Briefly explain how one event or development
• Briefly explain one specific way
• Briefly explain how one major historical factor
• Briefly explain how one person
• Briefly explain one specific outcome
• Briefly explain one specific historical impact
• Briefly explain one specific historical effect
• Briefly explain one specific result
• Briefly explain how one major historical factor
• Identify one distinct factor
• Briefly explain how one circumstance
• Briefly explain one reason

SIDENOTE:

In terms of the time period 1607 to 1865, the CED also suggests (though only by implication) that APUSH students should be given a chance to look at the following primary sources:

• John Winthrop’s A Model of Christian Charity
• Jonathan Edwards’ Sinner’s in a Hands of an Angry God
• The Parliament’s Proclamation Act
• The Treaty of Paris (ending the French and Indian War)
• The Treaty of Paris (ending the War of Independence)
• The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (ending the Mexican American War)
• The Articles of Confederation
• The US Constitution
• The First Amendment to the US Constitution
• The USSCs ruling in the case of Marbury v. Madison
• The USSC’s ruling in the case of McCulloch v. Madison
• The USSC’s ruling in the case of Dred Scott
• Abraham Lincoln’s House Divided Speech
• Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation Suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus
• Frederick Douglass’ Liberator
• Mississippi’s black codes
• Nebraska’s Jim Crow laws
• The Missouri Compromise
• The Kansas Nebraska Act
• Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• The Seneca Falls Conventions’ Declaration of Sentiments
• The Foreign Miners Tax
• Bartolome de las Casas’ In Defense of the Indians
• Juan de Sepulveda’s The Nature of the Indians
• Abigail Adams’ Remember the Ladies
• Roger Williams Letter to the Town of Providence
• George Washington’s Farewell Address
• Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer
• The Mayflower Compact
• The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
• Alexander Stephens Cornerstone Speech
• John C. Calhoun’s Slavery is a Positive Good
• Edward Everett’s Against the Removal Policy Speech

APUSH students and teachers may also find value in trying to create APUSH-style SAQs relating to these 25 primary sources.