The AP test has a written essay portion. The test has two essay prompts (a DBQ and a long answer essay)
You have 90 minutes to write two essays
The DBQ--> You are given a question prompt and approximately 7 documents.
They recommend approximately 15 minutes of reading time and 40 minutes of writing time.
In 8th grade, I'm going to walk you through a lot of steps to build your essay, but you DO NOT have to use these techniques when you take the AP test in high school. However, I suggest making an outline during the AP test similar to what we'll do in class.
The documents-- you have to use all or all but one of the documents.
We only write one 5 paragraph essay.
You will have analysis questions to help you with the documents
Typically, we analyze documents for one or two days. Then we have one 45 minute block of writing time.
I'll give you lots of ways to think about and build your essay.
Create a thesis statement and use primary sources to support your thesis. That's what professional historians do!
Connect different ideas in different primary sources together
Think about the context, bias, and author's point of view of each primary source document
Bring in your knowledge of history to write an argument defending your thesis.