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Qin Shi Huangdi DBQ cover
★ Inquiry DBQ Series · Grade 6 · #8

Qin Shi Huangdi DBQ

Was Qin Shi Huangdi more of a great unifier or a cruel tyrant?

Was the First Emperor of China a great unifier or a cruel tyrant? Students weigh Legalism, the burning of the books, a Han critic, and Qin's reforms.

Grade 6Development of Civilizations 3500 BCE–600 CEGoogle Slides3 class periods

License: one teacher and their own students.

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Secure checkout through Teachers Pay Teachers. You'll get the Google Drive folder with your "Make a copy" Google Slides files right away.

What's included

  • Student DBQ packet: hook, background reading, Documents A–F with analysis questions, evidence organizer, bucketing and outline pages, C-E-R essay and 4-point rubric
  • Scaffolded version with shorter excerpts, plain-words versions and sentence starters
  • Teacher presentation with speaker notes, plus a teacher guide with standards, pacing, answer key and a sample essay

The documents

  • Document A: The Book of Lord Shang (Legalism)
  • Document B: Uniting the empire (reforms chart)
  • Document C: Giles: "in many senses a great man"
  • Document D: The burning of the books
  • Document E: A Han official looks back
  • Document F: The "ten great follies"

Document A: The Book of Lord Shang, trans. J. J. L. Duyvendak (1928), public domain. Document B: teacher-made chart. Documents C and D: Herbert A. Giles, A History of Chinese Literature (1901), public domain. Documents E and F: Herbert A. Giles, Gems of Chinese Literature (1922), public domain. Obvious scanning errors corrected.

Good to know

Class time
3 class periods
Format
Editable Google Slides
Answer key
Included

Standards: KAS Grade 6: 6.H.CH.1, 6.C.CP.1, 6.C.PR.1, 6.I.UE.1, 6.I.UE.2, 6.I.CC.1

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