Coins as Evidence: A DBQ Without a Document
World History / AP World History · grades 8–12 · One 50-minute class period
Standards: AP World: sourcing & contextualization · C3 D2.His.10.9-12 · Common Core RH.9-10.1–2
Students apply the standard DBQ moves — sourcing, contextualization, corroboration — to an object instead of a text, and discover that a coin answers "who made this and why" better than most written sources.
Learning objectives
By the end of the period, students can:
- Identify the issuing authority and intended audience of an object.
- Place a coin in its historical context using the catalog's dates and mint.
- State the claim the issuer is making, and name the evidence for that reading.
- Corroborate or challenge the coin's claim with the class textbook.
Procedure
| Stage | Time | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Hook | 5 min | Hand out (or project) a coin with no caption. Ask: who made this, and what did they want you to think? |
| Modeling | 10 min | Work one coin as a class through four questions: who issued it, when, for whom, and what claim does it make? |
| Independent work | 20 min | Students answer the same four questions for their own coin, in complete sentences, citing the catalog record. |
| Pair corroboration | 10 min | Pairs compare their coins and find one point where the textbook agrees and one where it says nothing. |
| Debrief | 5 min | Why would a state put this message on money rather than in a decree? |
The four questions (student handout)
- Who issued it?
- Name the authority. Was it an emperor, a city, a general, a king?
- When?
- Give the date range from the catalog and say how it is known.
- For whom?
- Who handled this denomination — soldiers, traders, everyone?
- What claim?
- Put the message in one sentence, in your own words.
- How do you know?
- Quote the legend or describe the image you are reading.
Rubric (25 points)
| Criterion | Points | What earns full credit |
|---|---|---|
| Sourcing | 5 | Authority, date, and mint correctly identified from the record. |
| Contextualization | 5 | The coin is placed in a specific historical situation. |
| Claim | 5 | The message is stated clearly and is supported by the object. |
| Evidence | 5 | Specific legend or image details are quoted, not paraphrased vaguely. |
| Corroboration | 5 | One point of agreement and one gap versus another source. |
Coins used in the examples
-
Nero and Agrippina — dynastic legitimacy, AD 54
—
AGRIPP AVG DIVI CL AVD NERONIS CAES MATER -
Trajan — victory titles as a political résumé
—
IMP CAES NERVA TRAIAN AVG GERM
Images stay on canoanumis.org with museum attribution; the printable packet carries catalog numbers and links instead, so nothing needs licensing.
Differentiation and assessment
- Support: pre-select coins whose reverse type is a clearly labelled personification.
- Extension: ask for a counter-argument — what would this coin never admit?
- Assessment: the four answers transfer directly into a DBQ body paragraph.
The graded version
In a pilot, every student gets a different coin from the filter you choose, auto-gradable parts are checked against the catalog record, and scores flow into your LMS gradebook over LTI 1.3. Setup takes about fifteen minutes, once, for an LMS administrator.