HIGH LEVEL DOCUMENT BASED QUESTION This DBQ adheres to New York State Learning Standard 3—Geography, Commencement Level, Key Idea #2. Additionally, this lesson plan corresponds with the National Social Studies Curriculum Standards thematic strand of people, places, and environments.
This Shapes & Shelters Document Based Question (DBQ) may be used in the classroom in various ways. First, students may build their own DBQ scaffolding questions in pairs, as a group, or on their own in class using the Shapes & Shelters images as resources. Second, the teacher may decide to select specific Shapes & Shelters images to include as scaffolding questions. Finally, Shapes & Shelters images can be selected either by the teacher or the students and included with the following primary sources to form a comprehensive DBQ assignment. However, at least four Shapes & Shelters images must be used as scaffolding documents.
DIRECTIONS
This Document Based Question (DBQ) consists of two parts. Part A includes scaffolding questions for each primary source. Answer each scaffolding question in the space provided. Part B is the DBQ. Write an essay that fully answers the DBQ.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The needs, wants, and beliefs of people depend partly on where they live. Geographical influence is proven through a historical analysis of architecture, art, and text.
DOCUMENT BASED QUESTION
How does geography affect civilization socially, economically and politically?
TASK Answer each scaffolding question in the space provided based on the corresponding primary source. Answer the DBQ using information from at least five of the primary sources in Part A and your knowledge of World history.
GUIDELINES
Document 1
“For six days and six nights the winds blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled. I looked at the face of the world and there was silence, all mankind turned to clay…then Ea opened his mouth and spoke to warrior Enlil, ‘Wisest of Gods, hero Enlil, how could you so senselessly bring down the flood?”
-The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sumerian Myth, ca. 2000 BCE
SCAFFOLDING QUESTION
Document 2
“The city has twelve principal gates, and extending out from each of these gates, for a distance of almost eight miles, are cities larger than Venice or Padua, so that one might journey six or seven days through one of these suburbs and it would seem as though he had traveled but a short distance. The city is located on lagoons of water, like the city of Venice. It also has more than 12,00 bridges, on which are stationed guards who watch over this city for the Great Khan.”
-Friar Odoric of Pordenone, Report to Pope Nicholas IV, China, 1330
SCAFFOLDING QUESTION
Document 3
“Many in times both past and present have ruined their families through becoming involved in speculative ventures. In Edo, by so-called gold extraction, or the smelting of gold from copper, people obtained some gold from bar copper and showed it to amateurs, whom they tricked into putting a lot of money into the idea.”
-Mitsui Takafusa, Some Observations on Merchants, Edo, Japan, 1720
SCAFFOLDING QUESTION
Document 4
“There are many problems pressing in upon us Bantu, to disturb the peaceful working of our homes. One of the chief is perhaps the stream of Native life into the towns. Man leave their homes, and go into big towns like Johannesburg, where they get a glimpse of a life such as they had dreamed never existed…the attractive luxuries of civilization are in many instances too much for them, they waste their hard earned wages, and seem to forget completely the crying need of their family out in the veld.”
-Charlotte Maxeke, Social Conditions Among Bantu Women and Girls, South Africa, 1930
SCAFFOLDING QUESTION