Short Essay Questions
Task: Read and analyze the following documents, applying your social studies knowledge and skills to
write a short essay of two or three paragraphs in which you:
• Describe the historical context surrounding documents 1 and 2
• Analyze Document 2 and explain how audience, or purpose, or bias, or point of view affects this document's
use as a reliable source of evidence.
In developing your short essay answer of two or three paragraphs, be sure to keep these explanations in mind.
Describe means "to illustrate something in words or tell about"
Historical Context refers to "the relevant historical circumstances surrounding or connecting the events, ideas,
or developments in these documents"
Analyze means "to examine a document and determine its elements and its relationships"
Explain means "to make plain or understandable; to give reasons for or causes of; to show the logical
development or relationship of"
Reliability is determined by how accurate and useful the information found in a source is for a specific
purpose.
Document 1:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to
secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed, -That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of
the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient
causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long
train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under
absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
for their future security.-Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity
which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an
absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
Source: Declaration of Independence, 1776
Document 2
General Colin was the famous head of the chiefs of staff and the first African American secretary of state , a position he held from 2001-2005 The following excerpt is from an interview conducted General Colin Powell was the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first African American for a public television series called Africans in America.
“Interviewer : The Declaration of Independence is unprecedented , a watershed moment in the nation . How did it apply to black people?
Powell : The Declaration of Independence is one of the most remarkable documents in the world , and certainly " in the English language or in Christendom. And In just a few words, it captures the essence. You know, “inalienable rights" , rights not given to you by the state but given to you by God , so they can't be taken away. And the purpose of the state is to secure these rights , not to give them to you or to tell you what you're supposed to do with them, but to secure those rights for you.
What are those rights? Life , liberty , and the pursuit of happiness . " We hold these truths to be self - evident. " In other words , you don't have to prove them . It's self - evident . Why is it self - evident ? Came from God . They're inalienable . Government secures them Remarkable document . It didn't apply to black folks.”
Source Colin Powell Africans in America, PBS, 1998
