Deconstructing Essay Questions

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Deconstructing Essay Questions
S.N.A.P. !
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Subject- what is the subject of the essay?
P
Number of parts to be covered by answer
Action you are asked to do
Period of time covered by essay
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!- Vocabulary key words that caught my
attention
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• Analyze the political, diplomatic, and military
  reasons for the United States victory in the
  Revolutionary War. Confine your answer to the
  period 17751783.

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Subject Revolutionary War Number of Parts
3 Action Analyzing Period of Time 1775-1783
! - Vocabulary analyze-to study something
closely and carefully to learn the nature and
relationship of the parts of something by a close
and careful examination. diplomatic-the skill or
activity of managing International relations
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• Analyze the ways in which controversy over the
  extension of slavery into western
  territoriescontributed to the coming of the
  Civil War. Confine your answer to the period
  1845-1861.

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Cite relevant historical evidence in support of
your generalizations and present your arguments
clearly and logically.

• Analyze the role of trans-Atlantic trade and
  Great Britains mercantilist policies in the
  economic development of the British North
  American colonies in the period from 1650 to
  1750.

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• Analyze the impact of technological innovations
  on the lives of TWO of the following groups.
  Confine your answer to the period 18651920.
• Factory workers
• Middle-class urban residents
• Midwestern farmers

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• Between 1945 and 1975 various groups in the
  United States engaged in protest.
• Analyze the reasons that protest emerged in this
  period for TWO of the following groups.
• African Americans
• College students
• Latino Americans
• Women

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• Directions The following question requires you
  to construct a coherent essay that integrates
  your interpretation
• of Documents A-J and your knowledge of the
  period referred to in the question. High scores
  will be earned only
• by essays that both cite key pieces of
  evidence from the documents and draw on outside
  knowledge of the period.
• Analyze the causes of growing opposition to
  slavery in the United States from 1776 to 1852.
  In your response, consider both underlying forces
  and specific events that contributed to the
  growing opposition.