... Let's talk about DBQ's

In Georgia, students are required to pass a writing test in social studies and science in order to pass high school. The prompt is referred to as a DBQ -- a document based question. It is a prompt that is accompanied by multiple documents. The documents can be graphs of data, diagrams, pictures, chemical equations... Any visual representation of information really.

In order to prepare my students for the test (which they take as sophomores) we do short DBQs after each test that are linked to the unit we had just covered. By that point, they should have all the information they need to answer the question and helps to avoid the "skip part 2, we will cover that next week..." issue.

The short DBQ's have a short prompt -- usually only one or two things they are asked to explain or answer using the one document that is provided. For the DBQs I also give my students a template to help them construct their answer and get used to this style of informative writing. The sections are labeled Main Idea, Support 1 (Document), Support 2 (Prior Knowledge), and Support 3 (Connection). Here is a rough idea of what I look for in each section:

Main Idea: I look for an answer to the question. I describe it as a thesis statement to my student. What is the answer you came up with? What are you explaining? This is not a topic sentence (that is what they want to write first...) but rather a direction for the rest of their writing. A Main Idea. A Thesis. If the prompt and document were dealing with a food web, it may be something like "A food web is a diagram that shows the transfer of energy through different organisms in an ecosystem."

Support 1 (Document): This a description of what was in the document that helped them come up with their answer. It can be as simple as "Document 1 shows a food web in which a bear is eating a fish."

Support 2 (Prior Knowledge): This is the information they know in their brain about the topic -- information not given to them and not shown in the document. For our food web example, it may be "10% of the energy is given to the next organism when it is eaten. Heterotrophs get their energy from eating other organisms. Carnivores eat other animals." This is where students can really "beef" up their answer by adding vocabulary, descriptions, and explanations to what they are thinking.

Support 3 (Connection): The final support is a connection between what the document shows and what they know. Back to our food web example -- "The bear is a carnivore because he is eating another animal, the fish. The bear is also a heterotroph because he is eating his food instead of making it from the sun. The bear will only get 10% of the energy the fish has."

It really is a very simple breakdown of how to construct a scientific argument and back it up with data. For the actual gateway test, they are writing a full essay, not just a short paragraph like in the DBQs, but the DBQs give them a place to start thinking about how to construct and support an argument in science content.

When I gave them their first DBQ they were completely lost. They had no idea what all those fancy words meant. Some of them understood main idea, but many of them confused it with a topic sentence and ended up just rewriting the prompt. It took a lot of scaffolding for students to be able to use the template, but now that they are familiar with it they at least know what they need to write (actually being able to write it is a whole 'nother story...).

I have a free DBQ available on my Teachers Pay Teachers store, as well as a pack of DBQs covering a variety of units available for purchase. I hope that even those educators outside of Georgia can find a way to incorporate writing into your biology curriculum!