AP: Writing a Significance Statement

Along with definitions, significance statements are of the utmost importance in AP History classes. While not as relevant in APUSH, in World they can be one of the things you're graded on for understanding the concepts of history. What stumps many students is what they should write about in their significance; basically, they have to choose what is more important over another, relegating the answer to an opinion piece. So, you have to ask yourself: why is this thing I'm writing about significant? What has it done historically to be mentioned in my textbook and been required for me to know? Due to the nature of significance statements, they can often confuse students, causing an under-par answer or complete avoidance ("It's too hard!"). The thing is, you WANT to be able to describe significance; if you can do that, you're already on your way to understanding history in context. In fact, writing about significance can end up being one of the easiest things you can do with practice!

To begin, a significance is much like a definition. It is roughly 3-5 sentences long, and you must be able to include context (who, what, where, why, etc.). The big difference is, while definitions are very straightforward, significance asks you to look at the cause and affect of an event: what did this event do to change the world and how was it existing so world-changing? Most of the time, the historical event either changed something that made the world better, or made the world worse. However, students can still understand an event, yet misinterpret their significance due to their own conclusions. Here's an example of a significance statement over Agriculture:

"The significance of agriculture is that it helped humans transition from hunting and gathering societies to civilizations. Many cultures were also able to survive droughts and famines thanks to agriculture’s solution to food surpluses (storing excess food for later). The influence of agriculture caused many changes to jobs and tools, with such jobs as scribe and potter being created and more useful equipment made to help farm crops, like the hoe and the plow. And even though it started slow, it emerged across the globe and helped kick start civilizations."

This significance may not look bad at first glance, but if you examine the sentences more closely, you can see why this statement is incorrect (yes, even opinions can be factually proven wrong). While 3 sentences, it could be reduced down into 1 based on its similar info, which is already a bad sign. There is also a very bold statement ("helped kick start civilizations") that cannot be used with such limited information; what evidence does this statement provide to show that agriculture did such a thing? The little amount of information provided in this statement makes its argument weak, and while the student (me, unfortunately) may have understood the history of agriculture, was not able to translate it effectively into significance.

Now, for the good statement, on Serfdom:

"Serfs were significant because they helped establish the concept of manors, which were large estates of land where the serfs could work and be monitored.  Before manors, lords had no way of knowing or stopping a dispute between some of his serfs quickly enough, and his authority was hard to keep over long distances.  With manors, though, lords and deputies (assistants of the lord) were able to police and provide justice to any quarrel in the estate, keeping the serfs in line, and all of the lord’s serfs were located in the same area, allowing the lord’s decrees to be heard by all of his serfs and making it easier for serfs to travel to the lord with rent or harvest."

The difference in this statement is bluntly noticeable. Not only does the statement follow requirements for length, it immediately proposes how the existence of serfs benefited another area (the manor system). By also having a before and after, the reader should be able to see how the very presence of serfs changed Europe, and by extension why they are significant. As a plus, there aren't any bold statements.

With these examples, you can hopefully see that significance statements aren't hard; you just need the right information and the right context in order to make sense. In fact, it only takes about 3-5 statements before you can start getting into the groove of things, and whenever you're tested on the historical significance of serfdom, you can have me to thank!

-Pharaoh Noh-Tyep