Free+Response+Practice+Essay

**Free Response Essay Assignment**
The following assignment is designed to prepare you for your first in-class free response essay that will be part of the Unit 2 test about Western European history from 1550 to 1650. This will be the only time all year that you will have a chance to plan, organize and (partially) write one of our A.P. essays in the comfort of your own home. All the rest of your essay writing will be done in class with a “bluebook” so that you can get used to the actual test conditions. Unlike the real testing situation, you will should use your laptop to write this assignment.

**Your task:**
1. Use all of the steps of our “ROBOT” strategy to figure out how to attack the following question. You must attach your graphic organizer to the essay that you will hand in attached to your “essay.” The graphic organizer should NOT be created on the computer. Make a quick diagram, label its key parts and scribble in your brainstormed facts. The “outline” part of your planning should be limited to a few key phrases that will indicate the sequence of topics you want to follow to make your argument.

2. Write the first paragraph of your essay. It should be four or five sentences long. (Refer to the handouts you have received about how to write this.)

3. Be sure that your thesis is the LAST sentence of your opening paragraph. Remember that it cannot merely restate the question. The thesis has to suggest how you are going to answer that question. The thesis also needs to serve as a table of contents for the two or three paragraphs that would form the body of your essay. Again, you should refer to the handouts I have given you about this.

4. Skip a line and write the topic sentence of your second paragraph. (Make very certain that it connects directly to some idea or concept that is in your thesis.) Then keep going and complete this second paragraph, using specific evidence in whole sentences to support your argument. Try to include at teast three different and specific pieces of evidence in this paragraph. Depending on your evidence, this paragraph will probably end up with four or five sentences.

5. Again skip a line and write the topic sentence of your third paragraph. (Make very certain that it connects directly to some idea or concept that is in your thesis.) You do NOT need to supply any evidence or write anything else for this paragraph.

6. Again skip a line and write the topic sentence of your fourth paragraph. (Make very certain that it connects directly to some idea or concept that is in your thesis.) You do NOT need to supply any evidence or write anything else for this paragraph. Note: You won’t always need four paragraphs after your introduction, but it does make sense for the following question.

7. Be sure to attach the graphic organizer when you are finished writing.

== **The Question:** //“Even though most of the fighting in the Thirty Years’ War took place in the Holy Roman Empire, most of its boundaries and loose political structure were preserved in the peace treaty that ended it. This fact suggests that the war was largely pointless.” Evaluate the accuracy of this statement by drawing evidence from political, economic and religious trends in Europe in the first half of the 17th century.// ==