Framing Textbook Terms Around Essential Questions?

I’ve posted some of my reflections about the use/misuse of terms in AP US history. I’ve also posted an excerpt from a student’s notebook. For convenience, let’s call this anonymous student Napoleon, whose notes are posted below.

Completing Terms takes a lot of time. Students tell me they typically spend about 10-15 hours per week on their terms alone (Daily Routines, 4.5). In theory, the students are expected to read the textbook, which, in the case of Chapter 7, amounts to 33 pages of densely written text, before answering the terms. However, in the hectic world of high school, during which time many of the students are also involved in extracurricular activities, this generally doesn't happen. They often choose the path of least resistance. 

Rather than read the chapter and then answer the terms, which helps situate the terms in their proper historical context, they tend to comb the chapter, find the term, and copy a paragraph or two out of the textbook. This week's focus question was on Camp-Meeting Revivals, i.e., The Second Great Awakening that swept across the religious landscape of antebellum America. The revivalists, the so-called movers and shakers, are conspicuously absent from Napoleon’s notes on the Second Great Awakening. Where, for example, is the evangelist Charles Finney, in Napoleon’s account?

The textbook devoted 8 pages out of 33 (or nearly 25% of the chapter) on revivalism, including two pages on Finney, whose life and legacy are sketched in the textbook. The problem that Napoleon and many of his classmates struggled with was how to "discriminate" such a large chunk of reading. His notes suggest that he has failed to fully understand the significance of The Second Great Awakening, not to mention the central role played by Finney, the so-called Founder of Modern Revivalism. This is due, in large part, to the absence of an essential question to direct his 8-pages of reading for this term.

For example, one essential question could have been thus: Why was the Second Great Awakening so Great? Framing the term around an essential question would have helped Napoleon (and the 120 other students who are currently taking AP US History) to focus on the evangelical reformers and their big ideas. The Second Great Awakening was great because it was so far-reaching and wide-ranging. It affected both men and women, white and black, rich and poor, north and south. It was Great because it spread across the American religious landscape, from New England in the North to Georgia in the South; from seaport cities to frontier settlements. One of the legacies of the Second Great Awakening was the Abolitionist Movement, the coalition of whites and blacks opposed to slavery. To support their cause, they frequently quoted Jesus' statements about treating others with respect and love. White Christians in the South, however, did not view slavery as a sin. Rather, their leaders were able to quote many Biblical passages in support of slavery. The Civil War and the divide over the question of slavery thus began in the nation's churches, a decade before fighting began on the battlefields. All of this, however, is absent from the overwhelming majority of the student's notes, including Napoleon’s, despite the fact that the chapter had two sub-headings clearly identified as: EVANGELICALS AND SLAVERY and THE BEGINNINGS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY. Framing the Second Great Awakening around an essential question could have helped students such as Napoleon navigate his way through the religious landscape of antebellum America. In so doing, it would have contributed to the Development of Intellectual Character (Benchmark, 4.1) while exercising higher cognitive processes (Smoothly Functioning Learning Community, 4.3).

What do you think?