YouTube Transcript:
AP World History: 1_4–1_6 State Building in the Americas_ Africa_ and Europe from c_ 1200 to c_ 1450

hey everybody
it is Friday welcome to our latest
edition of AP World History modern
review session my name is Mason Lazaro
coming to you from the Pflugerville
Texas or the in the Austin Texas area
and I'm ready to get into it so let's
talk about what we're doing today
alright so as you know Wednesday
yesterday and today we were covering
unit 1 which is sort of that tour of the
world it's called the global tapestry so
we're gonna finish that up today talking
about state buildings specifically how
did governments operate in Africa Europe
and the Americas the last three regions
that we have not really talked about yet
starting on next week we're gonna get
into unit 2 that's where we're gonna you
know real history stuff Smith is going
over trade routes on Monday I'm gonna
talk about the Mongols on Tuesday and
we'll kind of go from there but today
we're gonna finish up the sort of global
tapestry so we know where we're all at
starting in 1200 and then we're also
going to talk about kind of similarities
and differences I'm doing a lot of
comparing contrasting in state building
between these three regions and that's
gonna get us into making historical
arguments and we're going to talk a lot
of thesis statements as well today you
know about the importance of thesis
statements and your writing so I want to
make sure we're all clear on it we're
all feeling good as we get ready for
this AP test next month all right so for
our warm up today we want to take a look
at the homework that Smith gave y'all
last night he gave you two claims I'm
sorry he gave you pieces of evidence and
he asked you to come up with two claims
based on these pieces of evidence so
here's the first set that he gave you
and if you look at them and you read
them and you kind of put them together
which you know is what you're supposed
to do when making historical argument
you start to realize that this is about
reasons why the Abbasid Caliphate
collapsed
and so you can make a claim that there
were internal and external reasons for
that collapse if you notice evidence
piece a is about inside Egypt that's an
internal reason for collapse D and C are
about external threats to the Caliphate
especially including the Mongols which
again we'll talk about on Tuesday
the other one he gave y'all was about
how Islam spread as a religion and if
you notice here in his claim he gets a
little bit more specific in this one
than he did the last one the first one
he just said internal and external
responses which is plenty good for a
topic sentence in a paragraph in an
essay here he gets a little bit more
specific though and says missionary
efforts military conquests and merchant
exchanges and if you look at those three
pieces of evidence those completely line
up with that claim but I want to kind of
take this one step further and I wanna
think about how religions in general
spread not just Islam if you look at
religions through world history these
are really the three main ways that
religion spreads you've got missionaries
preaching the new religion you have
military conquest where you force the
new people that you've conquered to
convert to your religion and then you
see religion spread through trade routes
as people are meeting with other people
from different regions and convincing
them to you know join or just a new
religion so remember what I talked about
the other day that we need to kind of
think about general laws of world
history and this is a perfect example of
it religions always spread through
missionary efforts military conquest or
through trade and once you've learned
that and understand that then you start
plugging in the details about specific
religions for example you just see right
here that Islam spread in all three of
those ways when you think about Buddhism
for example typically we think of that
as merchant exchanges being spread on
the Silk Road as it moves towards East
Asia if you think about Christianity in
the Americas generally think more about
military conquests as a Spanish and
Portuguese took over in the Americas so
make sure you understand those general
rules of world history and then plug in
the details as you're studying and
reviewing for this test and again it's
gonna make things so much easier for you
all right
so what we're gonna do today is like I
said we talked about State Building in
Africa Europe and the Americas
so before we start oh this is times up
but it is not up we're gonna reset this
timer here in a second but I want you to
do simply brainstorm all the different
states that you can think of that were
around in these three regions anywhere
between 1200 to 1450 and I'm talking
about anything large empires countries
kingdoms even down the smallest chiefin
that you can think of so take about one
minute write down as many as you can I'm
gonna try and reset this timer there we
go so ready go and when the timer is up
I'm gonna go to the next slide
again just list as many as you possibly
can for bonus points if you can write
down a few characteristics of the states
that would be great but not required
I'm just trying to get your mind
about states in these areas
you
you
all right 15 seconds
and time is up so let's take a look at
possible answers here all right I gave
you this is not an exhaustive list it
does not mention every single state
because that would take way too much
space and be way too crowded on the
PowerPoint but listed some of the major
ones that you may have listed but one
thing I want you to remember and don't
worry when you look at this list because
some of you were look at this list right
now going uh I never saw some of these
states my teacher never mentioned them
and they're not in my textbook do I need
to know them and the answer is
fortunately you do not need to know
every single one of these remember the
AP test is not designed to test your
knowledge of African states in the 14th
century okay so that's okay the AP test
especially this years with the DB hue is
of course testing your ability to make a
historical argument documents and also
bring in outside evidence but it can be
from any of these examples if there's a
question about state building from 1200
to 1450 as long as you know a couple of
these then you're totally fine so please
don't freak out if you see a list on
here a name on here and you're gonna I
don't know it's okay alright in fact I'm
not even going to talk about some of
these today I didn't talk about some of
these in my class so even some of my
students are watching this right now are
getting kind of mad at me and going
Lozier oh we never talked about this
it's okay guys you don't need to know it
that's why we didn't talk about it but
as long as you know a couple of examples
then you're good
all right so let's get into what you
need to know about state building before
we talk about state building in Africa
Europe and the Americas from 1200 1450
let's kind of back up and take a
big-picture look at state building in
general why do we even have States and
governments and again I mean we you
could talk about all kinds of different
forms of governments as I mentioned
you've talked about giant empires this
year in class you've talked about
smaller kingdoms and countries all the
way down to like small city-states but
no matter how big it is or how long it
lasted
generally speaking states are trying to
accomplish a couple of things one
they're trying to organize all the
resources of the area states that
survive and thrive are able to figure
out exactly okay how many people do we
have how many farmers do we have how
many soldiers do we have how many
weapons do we have for those soldiers
and how can we get more weapons for the
soldiers how much food do we have crops
animals etc and how can we make sure
that everybody in our area is getting
fed those that are able to organize and
be more efficient have usually survived
and then of course another major role of
governments in general is that they're
supposed to enforce the laws and social
norms of the area you know consider I
think we can all agree that if you break
a law you should go to jail you should
be locked up into a room for some amount
of time that's kind of agreed-upon at
least in our society we'll remember the
government has the power to put people
in jail you as an individual do not have
that power please please please don't go
locking anybody up in a room even if you
think they committed a crime that's
called kidnapping it's wrong you should
not do it please leave it up to the
government and the police force to do
that okay
that is a main function of governments
everywhere to enforce laws alright so
then where did governments come from
where when do they start how did they
start well ok historians are kind of you
know a little bit of a disagreement
about this but I think generally
speaking we can say the first states
began somewhere around 3000 BCE so about
5000 years ago and about five or seven
thousand years after the Neolithic
Revolution I don't know if you talked
about the Neolithic Revolution in class
this year but remember that's when
humans first began to domesticate plants
and animals started to settle down but
then it takes a while almost 5000 years
until we see the first real states and
governments but what's really
interesting is that when you look at
where these states and governments begin
to pop up around the world it happens in
all different regions of the world
and kind of around the same time this
was not a situation where one state
starts in Mesopotamia and then everyone
else hears about it you know the news
spreads around the world like hey check
out this new cool idea of having a
government a lot of these popped up
independently again we see new states in
Mesopotamia we also see at the same time
new states in Mesoamerica and Collect
what's today's southern Mexico well
obviously the people in North America
were not talking to the people in Asia
three five thousand years ago so these
are all developing independently now I
shouldn't ake a timeout real quick pause
you know how we talked about
contextualization on Monday some of you
right now are thinking to yourself hey
if that DBQ is about state building I am
totally gonna mention all this as my
contextualization I'm telling you right
now please please please don't do that
okay remember that I said
contextualization has to directly relate
to the topic of the prompt and your
thesis the Neolithic Revolution is not
going to directly relate to the prompt
okay cuz remember the prompt is not
gonna be until after 1200 so please
don't use this contextualization alright
I'm only telling you this for your own
edification and knowledge this is not
supposed to be in your DBQ please don't
do it okay
the other thing we need to consider
though is how to governments and states
keep their power and there's a lot of
different ways but there's two that we
really see in nearly every state around
the world first is the use of religion
you know you got to consider no matter
what religion we're talking about or
what region of the world religion is an
extremely powerful tool for good and for
evil sadly we've seen both through world
history which you can convince large
numbers of people to do all kinds of
things through the use of religion and
political leaders have figured this out
and they have used it to keep control
and we can see this going back to like
ancient Egypt where the pharaohs were
considered half-god and half-man and
people believed that the pharaohs were
the ones that kept the Nile River
flowing that's a way of using religious
power to govern or these days in our
country every time a politician ends a
speech with god Bless America they're
using religion to justify political
power and this is something we see
around the world so again it's one of
those kind of general laws of world
history if you can know that often
governments use religion to keep
political power then you can plug the
details in about specific examples
through history and you're good to go or
another way that governments keep
control is through the economy if
governments and leaders can promise to
keep the wealth coming in to keep trade
happening that's gonna keep the wealthy
elites happy it's gonna keep the
commoners happy and as long as you're
keeping everybody happy you get to stay
in charge of the government oftentimes
though when the economy collapses you
generally see a change in the power
structure of the Gov
as well and political leaders obviously
know that so let's take a look at how
that happens in Africa and Europe in the
Americas from 1200 to 1450
okay one similarity we see all across
those three regions is what I just said
using religion to govern so let me give
you a couple examples the Aztec empire
in Mesoamerica they were known for using
human sacrifice in their religious
worship the story there goes that there
was a belief that in order for the Sun
God the good god of the Aztec religion
to continue his fight he had to be
replenished with human blood
and so the Aztecs would sometimes
sacrifice humans at the temple but now
keep in mind is this was not a situation
where they just like grabbed a random
person off the street bronze the temple
and killed them usually the person that
was being sacrificed was a captured
soldier from another area after a battle
or even not even just like a regular
soldier usually like a high ranking
military official if they could
so notice yes there's a religious aspect
to it but it's also showing off the
leaders military power and political
power or if we switch over to West
Africa and the kingdom of Mali now we
think Mali
you probably think of montsum Musa and
hopefully you talked about him in class
he's an extremely important figure in
West Africa remember Monson Musa was the
one that was considered one of the
richest men ever to live and it's hard
to put like exact figures on how much
money did he have and even if you could
how do you compare that to like the
wealth of someone today like a Jeff
Bezos or Bill Gates or something like
that
but the point is if you made a list of
the richest people ever matzo mousse is
definitely up there at the top and
remember he shows this off by his
pilgrimage that he makes to Mecca and I
put a picture down below in the corner
of the PowerPoint here remembering that
pilgrimage from West Africa through
North Africa to Mecca he brings his
entire court with him he brings a ton of
people and he also brings a ton of gold
and he spins
along the trip he gives it to the poor
he helps build schools and universities
he helps build libraries in fact
scholars have started to realize that he
spent so much money in gold that it
caused the price of gold around an
entire region to actually dip because he
increased the supply so much that's
insane
really when you think about it okay but
the point is here he is showing off the
economic power and using religion to do
it and showing that economic power to
show off his political power as well to
show off the wealth of his kingdom or if
we think about Europe
you've got the Byzantine Empire remember
that's what's left of the old ancient
Roman Empire after the Roman Empire
collapses in the western half of Europe
it continues on it's the most part
generally speaking in Eastern Europe the
main religion there of course is
Christianity it's Eastern Orthodox
Christianity which is different from
Roman Catholics or Roman Catholicism
which is being which is mainly followed
in Western Europe and you may have
talked about the Great Schism if he did
cool if you didn't don't worry about it
too much but that was the split between
Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox
that's when there were at one point two
popes and this Pope said I'm
excommunicating you I'm kicking you out
of the church and this Pope said no you
can't do that because I'm kicking you
out and yes it sounds really childish
and it kind of was in many ways because
they were arguing over things like the
bread that you used for communion should
there be yeast in it or not like should
it rise like a loaf of bread or should
be more flat like a tortilla yeah you
know really important stuff there that
everybody cares about but anyway the
point is you have the Eastern Orthodox
Church in the Byzantine Empire and
people saw the Emperor as also the
leader of the church a term known as
Caesar a pape ism which hey by the way
that's a fun word that you can wow your
friends and family with this weekend
if you talk to anybody this weekend you
know while using social distancing and
all that but notice the term Caesar the
head of the government
papé ism like the Pope the head of the
church as well so again you've got
political power and religious power very
much intertwined so that's kind of
similarity that we can see across the
Americas and Africa and Europe that
political leaders are using religious
power
but we can also see some differences
let's think about that other way that
government leaders you are staying
control and that is through the economy
through trade okay
Monson loose' and the other leaders of
Mali we're able to take control and grow
their kingdom because of all the money
coming in from the salt and gold trade
member there are large deposits of salt
and gold in West Africa and when news of
that spreads people start merchants
start traveling across the Sahara Desert
in order to get it Smith is gonna get
into all that on Monday so I don't want
to go too far into it but the point is
there's a lot of money coming into West
Africa and for everything that gets sold
of course that means more tax money and
more tax money of course means more
money for the government and more power
for the government or consider down in
South America
the Incas remember the Inca Empire kind
of ran down the coast the Pacific
between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes
Mountains it was a very geographically
just long Empire and so the Incas built
this amazingly intricate system of roads
up and down the coasts but also into the
Andes Mountains and part of that was to
keep control for the government but also
a lot of it was to help facilitate trade
across the empire again the more stuff
that gets traded the more stuff that
gets bought and sold means more tax
money for the government but here we
actually see a difference between those
kingdoms and empires and what we see in
Western Europe okay remember that in
Western Europe ever since the fall of
the Roman Empire which I mean depending
on how you want to date it there's a lot
of different ways you could date it but
most would agree somewhere around the
300s ever since then you don't see any
really huge kingdoms or empires emerging
nothing like these other ones that we've
looked at already
there are a few that kind of came and
went but then they fell apart and the
point is when it comes to political
power and West
Europe after the fall of Rome until
about 1450 or so it's very fluid
it's very decentralized it's definitely
a feudal system where power lies more in
the hands of the wealthy landowners very
similar to what we talked about Japan
the other day with the daimyo and
Samurai but one of the reasons why
that's the case is because lack of long
distance trade remember if you think
about all those trade routes across
afro-eurasia Western Europe is kind of
off in the corner by itself it really
was not involved in a lot of trade
across the Silk Roads or the Indian
Ocean or the Sahara Desert routes and so
because of that you don't see a ton of
wealth coming to that area as well and
so you don't see any large governments
or empires in that area
now I want to think about how geography
can be a barrier in limitation to the
growth of kingdoms and empires for one
it could definitely limit long-distance
trade you know think about when it comes
to West Africa we really don't see
long-distance trade across the Sahara
Desert until the discovery of gold and
salt before that no-one went across the
Sahara Desert why would you risk your
life doing that until gold and salts are
discovered those are both extremely
valuable gold you know because it's gold
it's shiny and really pretty and
everybody wants it and you can make
really cool stuff with it salt well
everybody needs salt
it makes your food taste good everybody
wants it and so when that happens then
you start to see that trade across the
Sahara Desert but before that you really
don't but now think about if the kingdom
of Mali was looking to expand they're
not really able to expand across the
Sahara Desert and to say like North
Africa it's one thing to cross the
desert in pursuit of riches it's another
thing if you're like a soldier in the
Mali army and you're told you have to
cross the desert to go fight this other
army I don't know that I'm willing to
risk my life crossing the Sahara Desert
in order to go fight and possibly die
that's a little much okay also if you
think about South America remember the
Incas would never really spread their
empire past the Andes Mountains because
the Andes Mountains are really big and
really hard to cross and then if you
consider rainforests in South America
you never really see any kind of large
kingdom or Empire that encompasses North
America and South America because try
getting through the Isthmus of Panama
right there especially with all that
rainforest so transportation and
communication and limited then the
spread of a governments power is when to
be limited as well okay let's take a
break from the whole State Building
thing for a second and let's talk thesis
statements
okay I know that you've talked thesis
statements all year long with your
teacher I hope that you've practiced
them this is something that I start the
very first week of school with my
students on and when we do over a couple
of ideas here a couple things that your
thesis asked to do so let me run through
these and then we'll do a little
practice okay
first thing your thesis statement has to
do and by the way don't forget you need
a good solid thesis statement for the DB
hue that you're writing next month it
has to answer the question okay I know
you're looking at me going yellow sure
oh we know it has to answer the question
but you'd be surprised the number of
times I've gone to grade those AP tests
in June and I see essays where students
simply did not answer the question if
the questions asking about let's say
causes of the Industrial Revolution
don't mention trains in your thesis
trains were not a cause of the
Industrial Revolution they were effect
they were something that drove it later
but they were not a cause don't put
trains and if I'm asking about causes so
just simply answer the question
all right the other thing that you need
to have in your thesis are what I call
organizational categories some teachers
call them claims whatever you want to
call it's fine but these are in a sense
your answers to the question typically I
like to tell students you have to have
at least two categories three is
preferable I would always like my
students when they write an essay in
class to have three although if we're
thinking about this year and this DBQ
remember you're only gonna have five
documents on this DBQ you're only gonna
have 45 minutes to write it so I think
for this year as long as you've got two
I think that is plenty I think you're in
a really good spot if you have two solid
claims two solid answers to the thesis
I'm sorry to the prompt then you're in a
really good spot and I'll show you some
examples of what I mean by that in a
second but
need to be careful with your categories
that they're not too broad I don't want
to see political and economic causes
because guys there's political and
economic causes for like everything in
history right so don't just say
something broad like political and
economic you got to be a little bit more
specific than that
but at the same time you don't need a
huge giant run-on sentence with all
types of different examples that's going
to come later in your body paragraphs so
you want to be specific but not too
specific and I'll show you what I mean
in a second but I think for this year as
long as you've got to you're in a good
spot alright and the way I tell students
to do this I want to keep this simple
let's just take the words of the prompt
rearrange them a little bit add your
categories because you've got to add
something to it and then you've got your
thesis statement
remember that pretty much every prompt
is gonna have a region of the world that
you have to talk about and it's gonna
have a time period please make sure you
have both of those in your thesis if you
don't put the region in your thesis then
you could be talking about anywhere in
the world if you don't put the time
period you could be talking about any
time in history so put the time period
put the region and if you use kind of
same terms of the prompt then you know
that you're doing number one that you're
answering the question also your thesis
should go in your introduction you are
introducing your argument and then
you're gonna talk about your argument
through the rest of the essay but I
would also put it in the conclusion as
well
remember if you look at the rubric for
the DBQ thesis statement is the one
thing that has to be in a certain spot
it has to be either in your intro or
your conclusion but I'm gonna suggest
that you put it in both because as long
as you do it well one time you get the
point for the thesis statement and I
have seen so many times where a student
writes their thesis in the intro and
it's okay but it doesn't quite reach the
level of a good thesis statement they
don't get the point
but then you start writing your essay
and your brain starts moving and the
little hamster in the wheel is turning
in your brain and by the time you dump
that essay you feel you know a lot more
about it you feel a lot better and if
you rewrite your thesis in a different
way in your conclusion it's almost
always going to be better and there are
plenty of times where I've seen students
who did not get the thesis point their
intro but they reworded it we're a
little bit more specific in their
conclusion and they got the thesis point
and everything was good so I would
suggest doing it both technically you
only have to do it in one but hey might
as well try it twice in case you mess up
on one
all right so let's look at a couple of
examples of decent statements these are
more kind of fun non history questions
also if you notice my answers are both
kind of dealing with my childhood in
south Louisiana in fact I'm wearing my
st. shirt today cuz got to talk about
the Saints and I've got my Mardi Gras
beads here so we're good there oh you
know what I'm just why is the guy here
but you know what I know that mighty
growl season's over but frankly don't we
all just need some happiness and bright
colors in our world right now so let's
just kind of pretend and have fun but
yes even though I do live in Texas I
grew up in south Louisiana and as they
say you can take the boy out of South
Louisiana but you can't take the south
Louisiana
out of the boy so let's talk about a
couple of south Louisiana possible
thesis statements Oh actually wait
before I do since I'm talking about
growing up in Louisiana I want to give a
shout out to my alma mater Baton Rouge
high if any of you are students there or
teachers there and are watching this go
Bulldogs
okay so if I asked you to write an essay
on which fast-food restaurant has the
best fried chicken
okay let's think about that for a second
first off the answer is Popeyes you
cannot argue with me some of you are
sitting there going wait lotro we've got
this like this local place it's really
really good it's got the best fried
chicken okay I hate to tell you but I
think you might be wrong you know and
here's the problem
I'm a history teacher I believe in
diversity of ideas and opinions and that
is really important to me and that you
know everyone can express their
viewpoints that is extremely important
except when it comes to really important
things like fried chicken
in which case Popeyes is the one answer
ok so just it is and if you live in a
part of the country or the world where
there are no Popeyes oh I'm sorry for
you I just what does what it just a
terrible terrible life you must lead but
hopefully one day you'll fine
'if the goodness of his Popeyes all
right so if I said which fast-food
restaurant is the best chicken notice
how I kind of rearranged some of the
words and the prompt of all the
fast-food restaurants Popeyes has the
best chicken so I've answered the
question right here with Popeyes but
here I give my reasons why the spice and
flavor the crispness of the skin and the
juiciness of the meat I've given you
three reasons why Popeyes has the best
chicken now this is perfect because if I
was gonna write out this full essay you
also now know that my first paragraph is
gonna be about spice and flavor I'm
gonna talk about all the different
spices that they put into the batter the
second paragraph is gonna be how when
you crunch that skin you eat it it just
tastes perfectly and then three my last
paragraphs gonna be with the juiciness
of the meat how the grease kind of gets
all over your fingers that's when you
know it's really good fried chicken so
you know exactly where I'm headed with
this but notice I didn't go into a lot
of explanation of my thesis statement
I kept it kind of short I kept it to one
sentence now at the same time I wasn't
super broad I didn't say Popeyes has the
best chicken because it tastes good
that's not enough you need to give some
reasons why without going into a long
run-on sentence okay also notice that
you have to answer the question I had to
answer fast-food restaurant maybe
there's a sit-down restaurant that has a
really good chicken but you can't
mention X that's not the question asked
my wife makes really really good fried
chicken but I can't say my wife's fried
chicken because she doesn't operate a
fast-food restaurant you have to answer
the question also I considered something
about maybe putting in biscuits in my
thesis as well because Popeyes has
amazing biscuits for a side but you
can't do that because the prompt did not
ask about the rest of the food it just
asked about chicken so if the prompt
asks about chicken talk about chicken
don't talk about biscuits now
this could be your contextualization you
could talk about Popeyes a restaurant it
started in New Orleans it's known for
its famous biscuits but as good as the
biscuits are their chickens even better
notice contextualization - thisis I made
that connection there and then you get
into how good the chicken is at Popeyes
or my second one will the Saints win the
Superbowl in 2021 because yes I'm a huge
Saints fan and right now those of you in
Minnesota are kind of laughing at me
because of what's happened twice now in
the last couple years the playoffs and I
will say good win y'all kicked our butts
this year if there's any Rams fans out
there okay y'all you know is pass
interference okay so don't even start
with me you know is pass interference
there's no question about it but it's
fine I'm over it I'm okay for the most
part but anyway let's move on let's talk
about 2021
if there is an NFL season and Super Bowl
the Saints are gonna win now notice the
reasons that I gave while the Saints
have an average defense their offense
and coaching rank at the top of the
league I didn't just say defense offense
coaching cuz I don't think that would be
enough but I did describe them average
defense but then really good offense in
coaching and that's enough for a thesis
statement you know then at the body of
my paragraphs when talking about offense
I'll talk about Drew Brees coaching I'll
talk about how great Sean Payton is so
I'll get into the details later you
don't have to do that in your thesis
statement but also notice something here
I have set up what possibly could be a
complex argument remember there is that
complex argument point and the rubric
that you can get where you kind of you
can give one side of the argument and
then the other as well that is possible
to show new ones so I've kind of set up
my thesis to be able to do that now
we be honest here for a second about
this complexity point and how do I say
this nicely okay I want you to consider
something that complexity point and the
rubric I know your teachers have talked
about it before it is a very very hard
point to get in a normal year and this
year we know is not normal you're only
going to have 45 minutes with a DBQ
you're only going to five documents so
as hard as that complexity point is
usually to get it's gonna be even harder
this year my thought when I'm looking at
this new rubric the other nine points
are thinker within most of your grass
grasps y'all can get those other nine
points focus on the other nine points
make sure you've nailed those down and
then if you want to think about
complexity then go for it but please
please please when you get your DBQ in
May don't spend all this time going I'm
gonna have the most complex argument I'm
gonna show it from all different sides
and then forget to source the documents
for example okay just let's focus on the
other nine points if he gets complexity
great but I think the other nine points
are really where you need to focus okay
so let's do a little practice for you
here we're back to a history question
about states and empires establishing
their authority so if I gave you this
essay prompt I'd like you to write a
one-sentence thesis statement that will
answer it and we give you a couple
minutes to do that but we're gonna do
the same thing we did on Wednesday where
if you want to stop go and stop this
right now and pause it and then when
you're ready hit play so that I'm not
standing here staring at the camera for
a couple minutes all right so ready
pause okay
welcome back here's the thesis statement
that I came up with again you may have
something different and that is a okay
please talk to your teacher though about
it but notice in my thesis I said twelve
hundred fourteen fifty I mentioned
Africa in the Americas because this
prompt doesn't actually give you a
region so you can go pretty much
anywhere in the world you want but I
said that states in Africa the Americas
used religious power and access to trade
routes to establish their authority so
I've given you two claims here religious
power and access to trade routes again
notice when it comes to religious power
I didn't mention human sacrifice I
didn't mention Mansa Musa's pilgrimage
to Mecca that is stuff that I won't
mention in the rest of the essay okay
all right so let's kind of summarize
what we've done today we've talked about
the ways that states form and the ways
that keep power again make sure you
understand those general ways that
states keep power and once you
understand that plugging in the details
about individual states it's gonna be so
much easier also you all know that
thesis statements are important your
teacher has stressed that over and over
and over again so make sure your thesis
statement is strong all right and then
my biggest tip for the AP test when
you're writing an essay make sure your
thesis is in your intro and in your
conclusion
all right you've got a little homework
for the weekend yes I'm that really mean
teacher that gives homework over the
weekend all right down below and the
Google Drive that is right below us
there is a file called one point four to
one point six homework it is a modified
DBQ I took an older DBQ from several
years ago willed it down to five
documents so I want you to look over
those documents I want you to write a
thesis statement for it all you need to
do is the thesis statement remember when
you're doing a DBQ
kind of group the documents together in
answers that you notice hey it looks
like documents two and five seem to kind
of go together and one in three seem to
work together as well group those
together like your teacher taught you
and let those documents guide your
categories in your thesis statement if
you're looking for bonus points once
you've got your thesis statement think
about topic sentences for your
paragraphs that you might write again
you've got your two claims your thesis
statement so you have two paragraphs and
your essay what's the first sentence of
those two paragraphs going to look like
so you can do that for bonus
oops all right we are done for today I
hope you'll have a nice weekend
hope you get to relax again do your best
with this we're all kind of in the same
boat right now trying to get ready for
this AP test I know it's an insane time
it really really is okay but please
understand focus on yourself focus on
your family as well okay I hope you get
rejuvenated over the weekend and we will
see y'all on Monday have a good weekend
bye everybody