Long Essay Question — Contextualization and

Introduction to the Document-Based Question

LEQ Contextualization

To earn the context point a student must describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt.

Context is not causation. Context is a broader environment in which something happened. Context influences the overall topic or theme of the essay. Begin by generalizing your essay to its main topics and/or themes. Then find another broad theme that was related, that influenced it because it came before or took place at the same time in the same general environment. To earn the context point, briefly explain how the two themes were related or connected.

TIP: Use the word ‘context’ to put the two topics or themes together.

“This second topic/theme was the context for my topic/theme by influencing it in this way.”