nking Skills: The Digital DBQ
N. Quidwai
P
erhaps the history discipline has been neglected over the past few years because we neglected
to fulfill our responsibility. Few other subject areas have the privilege of teaching a subject matter
that has the potential to humanize society. Each generation must ask themselves why the learning
of history is important and why history can bring us together rather than tear us apart.
H
ow do you bring about this transformation in you classroom? How do you engage students
in a dialogue between the past and the present? How do you create informed and active
citizens? In my book, “The Digital DBQ,” I propose how this transformation can begin to take
place in your classroom. A DBQ is a document-based question that asks students to use a series of
sources to respond to a prompt, an activity usually reserved for AP/IB level students. I strongly
believe that this investigative analysis of the past is an activity all students must engage in, and that
technology creates opportunities to differentiate instruction quickly and easily. Proposed below is
a series of steps for how to begin this process.
S
tep One: Distribute a Source Analysis Guide
To guide students in their analysis of sources, The History Project at the University of California,
Irvine has crafted a source analysis worksheet called the 6Cs (this can be found within the iTunes U
course). Through the lens of the 6Cs students begin to acquire the
skills of source analysis and think critically on a deeper level.
T
he 6Cs are as follows:
Content