SAIPAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

AP History:

One of the important skills that SIS students learn in Advanced Placement
(AP) history courses is how to analyze and synthesize historical documents in order
to create an effective essay for a document-based question (DBQ). DBQ essays
require the sort of higher-level thinking skills that SIS students will need in college.
Each one of the AP courses I teach (AP United States History, AP European History,
and AP World History) requires students to write a DBQ essay on the national exam,
which is administered each May. In each of those courses, therefore, we spend a
great deal of time discussing and writing DBQ essays, along with traditional essays,
which also appear on the May exams.

A document-based question is what it sounds like: it is an essay item that is
partly based on a set of historical documents that are provided to the students along
with an essay prompt. The documents may include photographs, diagrams, maps,
charts, tables, editorial cartoons, personal letters, or excerpts from historical
documents such as treaties or Supreme Court rulings. The number of documents
can range from half a dozen to a dozen, depending upon the AP course. Some of the
documents may be rather simple and straightforward, while others may be more
complex or require high-level historical interpretation skills. In all cases the
student is asked to correctly interpret, analyze, and synthesize the documents,
along with other relevant historical information not provided to them in the essay
but learned in the course. If done well, the result is a comprehensive
analytical essay that incorporates the documents and other
information to address the essay topic.
Historical analysis and synthesis require higher-level reasoning
skills, and high school students who are adept at those skills are
usually well prepared for the rigorous coursework offered at
American colleges and universities. Although many SIS students
find DBQ essays stressful, after writing a few of them they
typically feel much more comfortable, and they begin to view
Keith
them not as forms of intellectual torture, but as intellectually
Tessen
challenging tasks that allow students considerable latitude to
History
create an essay that reflects not only their knowledge of the
topic, but also their own interpretations and opinions.
Putting the T in History, By Natalie Hardt(G11)
A good teacher is one who instills a desire to succeed and learn; they care about their students and
make each person feel unique. They dont need to resort to theatrics in order to get the students interested in
the subject matter; yet they motivate them to want to learn more and flourish. Mr. Tessen fits all these
criteria and much more.

Mr. Tessen has been teaching AP History courses at SIS for 11 years and has become an integral part
of our school. These courses include American History, European History, and World History being taught to
sophomores, juniors, and seniors, respectively. The classes are, obviously, very difficult, but Mr. Tessen
manages to make even the most boring sections somewhat interesting. In discussing how he tries to achieve
this, Mr. Tessen said, I look for seemingly insignificant facts or events concerning the topic at hand and try
to show how what might seem insignificant can teach us a whole lot about an event or a person or a place.
He has expressed clearly how positively he feels about his students, calling them the kindest, most
thoughtful group of teenagers in the history of the universe.
These AP courses, along with those taught by Mr. Lee, are also relevant to the students futures. Those
who put in the effort and succeed in these advanced courses have a greater chance of getting accepted into
top colleges and receiving better financial aid offers. Receiving qualifying scores on the cumulative May
exams can allow students to test out of the equivalent classes in college, saving them and their families tens
of thousands of dollars. Mr. Tessen also pointed out that these coursescan also instill a love of history,
politics, and comparative societies.

When people reflect on their high school days, the memories that are often mentioned are the school
dances and the ball games that were won. It is a true accomplishment on the part of a teacher if twenty years
down the line, their history class is remembered fondly for the good memories it elicits. Mr. Tessen is one
such amazing teacher who will join those ranks.