Analysis and Reasoning Using HAPPY

I highly recommend using some of the samples from this and previous year's essays to show students what does get the point and what doesn't. the 2022 samples aren't available online yet, but if you go to an APSI the consultants have them.  Here's the link to past exam samples:  apcentral.collegeboard.org/.../past-exam-questions

Having scored one of this year's DBQs, it was obvious to me that students really struggle with HAPPY analysis, so I have been thinking about taking a DBQ from Unit 1 or 2 and making a presentation with a few of the sources. I will then have slides of the source repeated with all the alternative ways that HAPPY could be used correctly. I want to get to the skill early.  Even with sourcing early, I still feel that students don't really get the "bias" idea so I think I will flesh that our with some current event articles or editorials from the local newspaper.  If there is "bias" then why?  How does the authors position/background shape what they are saying?  WHY is this important?  So, without sounding sarcastic in this post, I honestly think I will teach the students to answer "why" every time they source. So an answer such as "the person has bias because they work for the empire." Why are they biased because they work for the empire?  Maybe an answer is that they want to support the emperor's decisions so they don't get killed for defiance,  lose their job if the empire falls, etc.  That is what I want the students to get to!  And again, if a student chooses "H" then I would asked them WHY is the historical situation important to the source.  I don't think I stressed this enough last year, and based on the answers I saw in the DBQ, students aren't getting to the "WHY" of the document with much success, or they aren't even trying.   So if I keep asking WHY!? during class at every opportunity I get, maybe it will get ingrained and used (with a lot of practice of course!).  

As for sourcing during the school year, I think I will use sources as warm ups and use the first 10 minutes of class to source at least once a week.  Have students read, think HAPPY, then WHY again, and share with a small group, think WHY again, and then come together as a class to discuss.  Of course, as a teacher, I will have the answers I think fit, ready to go for them. In order to find the students that struggle a little bit, I would have to do individual "HAPPY" quizzes once in a while so that I could find the students that need extra support. I haven't fleshed out how I might score this work though.  Maybe I will make the warm ups individual during the second semester and grade them, using them as both summative and formative assessment. 

Because I feel students need to truly understand the content to be successful at sourcing, I need to be more intentional about lecture content, I will focus were students have struggled to understand and/or make connections in the past and also use reading quizzes to find out where the content "holes" in order to try to fill in the gaps. I am hoping that more formative assessment will help! And In general I need to do more explicit and frequent with work on the HTS. This way I hope the students are better set up to source!  

Thank you, Sharon Cohen ! I am stepping back into the AP realm this year with a brand new school that literally just got AP certified yesterday, so I am still waiting quite a few things to get full access to samples and this new-to-me thing called AP Classroom. I taught AP World for five years and have had a four year hiatus. Definitely looking forward to sifting through some examples. 

Janet Mann I think your approach is spot-on. They can usually identify some pieces, but that is the problem; it is always identification and not analysis. That is the WHY that they are missing in this. I love the idea of starting off with some sources for warm-ups. I do this with stimulus questions, but had not thought of it with the HAPPY tool. And, oddly enough, I was looking at that first DBQ because I do not usually teach DBQs that early in the year, but was thinking of making an analysis/grouping activity with it. I'll work it out and probably post it in the Community once it is done, but I like your thinking on it! Thanks for your thoughts on this. Glad I am not the only one who sees it.

I also scored this year's DBQ and amplify all that Janet Mann said. In addition, one thing that stood out to me were student's inability to accurately summarize the source or students who just did direct quotes with no additional summation (and thus didn't get the evidence point. Tying into others' questions about note-taking, I intend on being more intentional this year in teaching and modeling summation. I also noticed how students struggled with correctly analyzing a source's credibility. I like Janet's idea of asking Why to add another order of analysis. Similarly, if a student is evaluating the purpose, and the purpose is to persuade X of ABC. Then ask the student to extend by explaining how the source author is trying to persuade, what language/words are they using, what tone are they taking? Another resource for teaching source credibility and analysis  is the Stanford History Group's Civic Online Reasoning curriculum - the Intro Lessons and Civic Online Reasoning for the History Classroom have good modular resources. Sourcing is one of the hardest skills for students to grasp, starting early and practicing often in bite-size chunks as Janet recommends has worked well for me and my students. Good luck and let us know how you decide to teach it in your classroom.

Totally agree with everything you all said. I also agree with Meghan Nealis that the Standford materials can be quite useful if adapted.  She mentioned the Civics.  I also like the Reading Like a Historian stuff.  Also, I'll throw in two more things students have told me help with sourcing: 

1) I have a mantra that I chant with students to Name it, Explain it, and Connect it.  I posted about it somewhere in the discussion forum before.  As it applies to sourcing, Naming it means they have to identify the HAPPY element they are using in their doc analysis and how it is present in the source.  Explain it means they have to explain how it works and the why as Janet was saying, etc. Connect it means they have to explain "So what?" In other words, they have to explain why this thing matters to the argument they are making using the document.  Does the HAPPY thing reinforce the argument?  Qualify or temper the argument? etc.   

2) The other thing I do is give them sentence formulas.  This is particularly helpful with my struggling writers. It's not perfect and students can often misapply the formulas, but with practice they start to get it.  Here are examples:

Historical Situation/Context

• “During this time, . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”
• “At the time this document was written, . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”
• “This was an era of . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”

Audience

• “This document was aimed at . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”
• “The author was reaching out / speaking to . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”

Purpose

• “The reason for this document was to . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”
• “The author’s intention was to . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”

Point of View

• “From the author’s perspective, . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”
• “Because the author was a . . . s/he likely believed . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”
• “The author felt . . . because s/he was . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”
• “Considering that the author was a . . . , they would likely think/feel . . . which helps to explain . . . because . . .”

Hi Jessica Lindenmeier , 

I don't teach the AP course (at least not yet!) but have some experience using HAPPY tool in Origins / 9th Grade Global.

Many of my students are struggling readers and writers so I've gotten some experience really breaking down the tool. Giving them 5 skills at once just felt like too much.  To make it a tad more bite-size, for a while, we were just doing HPY ("Today we are just a little happy!") 

Once students started to get those skills down, a way or reinforcing the skill was by having the students work in groups. Just an example from Origins - I did a souricng activity with the documents on reactions to the Black Death.   I'll do my best to explain the core activity: 

- First I modeled that each group would be making a poster based on a document. You can see this in slide 4 here. 

- Each group had 5-6 minutes to create a poster where they showed off their use of the "HPY" skills - ini this case Historical Context, POV and "Significance - WHY". 

- Then the posters travelled around the room (what I call a "Gallery Chill" rather than a gallery walk). As the posters travelled, students took notes on a graphic organizer that you can see here - this way they're seeing how other students practiced the skill while also thinking about how the significance of the documents relates to the focus question - in this case  how people understood and responded to the Black Death at the time. 

Then, students did some some writing in the final summary question about how the documents impacted their thinking. 

I hope I explained this well enough and that it might be something that you could even use or adapt! Looking forward to reading more in this thread! 

 Casey Profitt These sentence starters are brilliant! I do a thesis formula with students, so this would not be a foreign concept to them and these seem like they will be extremely effective. I will be borrowing these and sharing with a colleague. Thank you so much for the tips!

 Adam Esrig  you explained this perfectly! Your teaching style matches mine a lot and I am going to use that Gallery Chill idea. The "little happy" is a great idea. I feel like taking this idea and mashing it up with Casey Profitt 's idea of those sentence starters may be just the right amount of modeling and scaffolding for the beginning of the year. I really appreciate the ideas! HAPPY has always been a struggle for me to teach effectively so thank you to all for some new tools to try this year.