Name: _________________________________ Date: _______________ Period: ___

Was Mali an Islamic Empire?

The key to writing a well-developed historical argument is to help the reader see your perspective about the topic. The goal is to make a claim about the topic and convince the reader that the claim is true. To do this, you must support your claim with specific evidence. A well-developed historical argument must contain the following components to be effective: 1. A thesis statement that makes your claim about the topic. The document-based question, Was Mali an Islamic Empire? is open to multiple interpretations. You will choose to claim that Mali was an Islamic empire, or Mali was not an Islamic empire. One of these two claims will be the thesis statement of your paper, written as the first sentence. 2. Statements that prove your claim. You must show your claim is true with reasons that can be supported from the documents. For this DBQ, you will provide two reasons that prove your claim. 3. Evidence from the documents that support your statements. If the reader is to believe your argument, you must support your ideas with direct evidence. These should be direct quotes or paraphrased passages from the documents you examined. 4. Explanation about how the evidence supports your thesis. You cannot assume the reader understands the meaning of the evidence you used from the documents. You must explain in your own words how the evidence supports your claim.

Follow the steps below and on the back of this paper to help organize your ideas and structure your historical argument.
1. Choose your thesis statement. Examine your document-analysis chart and consider the four documents you analyzed in class: a. Village Life in West Africa from Across the Centuries b. Excerpts from the writings of Ibn Fadl Allah al Omari, 1300s c. Excerpts from the accounts of Ibn Battuta, 1325-1354 d. Caravans to Mecca, by Paul Lunde, 1974 Circle the claim you will make in your historical argument. This is your thesis statement, and will be the first sentence of your historical argument. (There is no right or wrong answer)

Mali was an Islamic empire.

Mali was not an Islamic empire.

2. Use the chart below to structure the remaining sentences of your historical argument. The SEE structure (Statement, Evidence, Explanation) can help you organize your ideas.

S E E E E

Write a sentence that states one reason supporting your claim.

TATEMENT
Use a direct quote from a document that supports your above statement. According to (author and title) ________________________________,

VIDENCE
Explain how the quote supports your claim in 1-2 sentences.

XPLANATION
Write a sentence that states a second reason supporting your claim.

TATEMENT
Use a direct quote from a document that supports your above statement. According to (author and title) ________________________________,

VIDENCE
Explain how the quote supports your claim in 1-2 sentences.

XPLANATION