how to write ap history thesis

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AP World History: Sample DBQ Thesis Statements

Using the following documents, analyze how the Ottoman government viewed ethnic and religious groups within its empire for the period 1876–1908. Identify an additional document and explain how it would help you analyze the views of the Ottoman Empire.

Crafting a Solid Thesis Statement

Kaplan Pro Tip Your thesis can be in the first or last paragraph of your essay, but it cannot be split between the two. Many times, your original thesis is too simple to gain the point. A good idea is to write a concluding paragraph that might extend your original thesis. Think of a way to restate your thesis, adding information from your analysis of the documents.

Thesis Statements that Do NOT Work

There were many ways in which the Ottoman government viewed ethnic and religious groups.

The next statement paraphrases the historical background and does not address the question. It would not receive credit for being a thesis.

The Ottoman government brought reforms in the Constitution of 1876. The empire had a number of different groups of people living in it, including Christians and Muslims who did not practice the official form of Islam. By 1908 a new government was created by the Young Turks and the sultan was soon out of his job.

This next sentence gets the question backward: you are being asked for the government’s view of religious and ethnic groups, not the groups’ view of the government. Though the point-of-view issue is very important, this statement would not receive POV credit.

People of different nationalities reacted differently to the Ottoman government depending on their religion.

The following paragraph says a great deal about history, but it does not address the substance of the question. It would not receive credit because of its irrelevancy.

Throughout history, people around the world have struggled with the issue of political power and freedom. From the harbor of Boston during the first stages of the American Revolution to the plantations of Haiti during the struggle to end slavery, people have battled for power. Even in places like China with the Boxer Rebellion, people were responding against the issue of Westernization. Imperialism made the demand for change even more important, as European powers circled the globe and stretched their influences to the far reaches of the known world. In the Ottoman Empire too, people demanded change.

Thesis Statements that DO Work

Now we turn to thesis statements that do work. These two sentences address both the religious and ethnic aspects of the question. They describe how these groups were viewed.

The Ottoman government took the same position on religious diversity as it did on ethnic diversity. Minorities were servants of the Ottoman Turks, and religious diversity was allowed as long as Islam remained supreme.

This statement answers the question in a different way but is equally successful.

Government officials in the Ottoman Empire sent out the message that all people in the empire were equal regardless of religion or ethnicity, yet the reality was that the Turks and their version of Islam were superior.

Going Beyond the Basic Requirements

• have a highly sophisticated thesis
• show deep analysis of the documents
• use documents persuasively in broad conceptual ways
• analyze point of view thoughtfully and consistently
• identify multiple additional documents with sophisticated explanations of their usefulness
• bring in relevant outside information beyond the historical background provided

Final Notes on How to Write the DBQ

• Take notes in the margins during the reading period relating to the background of the speaker and his/her possible point of view.
• Assume that each document provides only a snapshot of the topic—just one perspective.
• Look for connections between documents for grouping.
• In the documents booklet, mark off documents that you use so that you do not forget to mention them.
• As you are writing, refer to the authorship of the documents, not just the document numbers.
• Mention additional documents and the reasons why they would help further analyze the question.
• Mark off each part of the instructions for the essay as you accomplish them.
• Use visual and graphic information in documents that are not text-based.

Don’t

• Repeat information from the historical background in your essay.
• Assume that the documents are universally valid rather than presenting a single perspective.
• Spend too much time on the DBQ rather than moving on to the other essay.
• Write the first paragraph before you have a clear idea of what your thesis will be.
• Ignore part of the question.
• Structure the essay with just one paragraph.
• Underline or highlight the thesis. (This may be done as an exercise for class, but it looks juvenile on the exam.)

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AP®︎/College US History

Course: ap®︎/college us history   >   unit 10.

• AP US History periods and themes
• AP US History multiple choice example 1
• AP US History multiple choice example 2
• AP US History short answer example 1
• AP US History short answer example 2

AP US History DBQ example 1

• AP US History DBQ example 2
• AP US History DBQ example 3
• AP US History DBQ example 4
• AP US History long essay example 1
• AP US History long essay example 2
• AP US History long essay example 3
• Preparing for the AP US History Exam (5/4/2016)
• AP US History Exam Prep Session (5/1/2017)

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Video transcript

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the ultimate ap us history study guide.

Advanced Placement (AP)

Studying for the AP US History course is an exercise in memorization and critical thinking. Multiple-choice questions ask you to read and analyze documents based on your historical knowledge. Essay questions require similar skills but with the added challenge of synthesizing your ideas into a coherent argument that incorporates both outside knowledge and evidence given to you.

In this comprehensive AP US History study guide, we will provide all the resources and strategies you need to prepare for the AP exam and any other test that comes your way in this course !

What's the Purpose of This AP US History Study Guide?

This guide will help you prepare for the AP US History test and other assessments you encounter throughout the school year in your AP US History class. It includes instructions for creating an effective study plan, a few helpful study tips, an overview of the content covered in the AP course, and a list of resources for practice questions.

This article is a one-stop-shop for all the information you need to master the AP US History curriculum.

Creating a Study Plan for AP US History: 5-Step Guide

You should start studying sooner rather than later for the AP US History exam because there's s o much information to remember. Ideally, you'll build on knowledge throughout the year and regularly review to avoid forgetting earlier parts of the course.

We recommend doing a holistic review after each in-class test that covers everything you've learned up to that point. You can then begin your final review for the AP test in March or April, which will give you an  entire month or two to spread out your studying.

Below are the steps we recommend following to prep for the AP US History test. The whole process should take you about 11 hours and 30 minutes .

Step 1: Take a Full-Length Practice Test

Time: 3 hours 15 minutes

The first step is to take a full, official AP US History practice test under realistic conditions. Time yourself in accordance with the actual test and write out both essays (DBQ and Long Essay) completely. Mark any multiple-choice questions you had to guess on—it's crucial to go over this information later even if you happen to guess correctly.

When you're done, score your practice test to see how well you would do on the real AP exam if you were to take it right now.

Depending on how much you're hoping to improve your AP US History test score, you might have to budget for more or less study time. If you're already scoring close to 5 (or a low 5), you might complete these steps once and find that you're satisfied with your results.

If you're scoring 2 or more points lower than you'd like, plan on going through this process several times.

Step 2: Catalog Your Mistakes and Guesses

Time: 1 hour

After you score your practice AP US History test, go through your mistakes and lucky guesses. Try to categorize the mistakes by content area so you can look for patterns and determine which parts of the course you need to study the most.

Once you've identified what you need to learn, move on to reviewing the actual content. Make a list in descending order of the topics that correspond to the highest number of missed multiple-choice questions and missed points on short-answer and free-response questions.

Step 3: Study Relevant Content Areas and Practice Multiple-Choice Questions

Time: 2 hours

Use the list you made in the previous step to guide your review of the AP US History content. Start with the areas for which you need a little refresher, and work your way up to the big issues you had on the diagnostic test .

When you're satisfied that you've fixed the gaps in knowledge that led to your errors, you should do some practice APUSH multiple-choice questions to make sure you really know your stuff (you can find them in review books or on one of the sites listed later in this article).

Step 4: Practice Planning and Writing Essays

You'll need to practice writing essays before taking the AP US History test so you feel comfortable with the time constraints and requirements. This is especially true for the Document-Based Question , which has a unique format.

After examining the problems with your essays from the original diagnostic test, practice your skills on additional free-response questions . For the sake of saving time, you don't necessarily need to write out entire essays, but you should at least make rough outlines that include all the components of a successful essay .

If you struggled a lot with time on your initial AP practice test, then we'd recommend going through another timed free-response section in full, so you can practice moving more quickly.

Step 5: Take a Second Full Practice Test

Once you've gotten more familiar with the APUSH material, take a second full AP practice test to assess your progress . If you find that you've improved to a satisfactory level, you might stop there and just do some light review until the exam.

If you're still not happy with your results, repeat this process , and make sure that you're really absorbing the material as you study.

3 Essential AP US History Study Tips

The following tips for AP US History will help you make the most of your time as you work your way through the process outlined above. The APUSH exam assesses your historical knowledge differently than other tests you might have taken in the past do. Make sure your study methods lend themselves to the format!

#1: Make Thematic Connections

The ultimate goal of AP US History is for you to be able to connect individual events to the main themes of the course and draw conclusions about historical trends based on your analysis.

As you study, don't just look at events in isolation— e xamine how they relate to other events of the time and how they might've resulted from different cultural and political attitudes . What were the outcomes of particular events, and how and why did they feed into other, larger trends?

Ask yourself to dig deeper. Doing so help you on both in-class assessments and the AP test.

#2: Read and Repeat

When you read content notes for AP US History, you might think you have a fact committed to memory but forget it when it appears on a test. The best way to combat this is to pause every couple of minutes and try to remember the facts that you just reviewed without looking back at your notes ; you'll immediately know whether you're absorbing the information or not.

If you're having trouble remembering a particular fact, try to make a distinctive connection with something else that's easier to remember.

For example, say you were trying to remember which items were taxed by the Townshend Acts. (It was glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea.) You could think of the mnemonic GuLPP iT to remember them. It also makes sense because all the taxes were repealed except for the one on tea, which you can gulp!

Maybe this sounds super weird, but we often find that the weirder the method of remembering something is, the more likely it will stick in your mind .

#3: Practice Writing Essay Questions

The free-response section is the biggest challenge on the AP US History exam because you have to plan and write two coherent essays (one DBQ and one Long Essay) in less than two hours. It's imperative that you do lots of practice before the AP test to prevent your essays from being disorganized or lacking in focus. You can consult the College Board site for links to past AP US History free-response questions .

Make sure you always have a strong thesis statement and all the points in your essay relate directly back to it. Plan out your essay before you start writing to keep yourself on track.

You should also t ry to include relevant outside knowledge but only if it pertains directly to your argument and the question itself. Don't just spew out everything you know about the topic!

AP US History Course Content: Themes and Units

AP US History covers history in what is now the United States from 1491 to the present. There are eight main themes in the course separated into nine units, or time periods. For each of these themes, we'll go over the main historical topics associated with it.

Before that, though, here's a quick overview of the AP US History units and what percentage of the AP exam they each make up:

Source: 2019-20 AP US History Course and Exam Description

Theme 1: American and National Identity

Focuses on how and why definitions of American and national identity and values have developed among the diverse and changing population of North America as well as on related topics, such as citizenship, constitutionalism, foreign policy, assimilation, and American exceptionalism.

Theme 2: Work, Exchange, and Technology

Focuses on the factors behind the development of systems of economic exchange, particularly the role of technology, economic markets, and government.

Theme 3: Geography and the Environment

Focuses on the role of geography and both the natural and human-made environments in the social and political developments in what would become the United States.

Theme 4: Migration and Settlement

Focuses on why and how the various people who moved to and within the United States both adapted to and transformed their new social and physical environments.

Theme 5: Politics and Power

Focuses on how different social and political groups have influenced society and government in the United States and how political beliefs and institutions have changed over time.

Theme 6: America in the World

Focuses on the interactions between nations that affected North American history in the colonial period and on the influence of the United States on world affairs.

Theme 7: American and Regional Culture

Focuses on the how and why national, regional, and group cultures developed and changed as well as how culture has shaped government policy and the economy.

Theme 8: Social Structures

Focuses on how and why systems of social organization develop and change as well as the impact that these systems have on the broader society.

AP US History Content: Notes and Outlines

In this section, we'll give you notes on the AP US History course content so you can study the facts and connect them to the themes above.

The content is divided into nine units and historical periods. Under each time period, we'll list important topics with links to notes you can use. Every period also includes a link to at least one timeline of significant events. It's helpful to have these handy, so you get a better grasp of the chronology (which will be very helpful for free-response questions).

The timelines are from AP Study Notes , while the rest of the notes are from a different site called APnotes.net , which gives a more succinct overview of the content, with key dates and major events in bold. Overall, this resource is great for a quick review.

We recommend looking at the chapter outlines on AP Study Notes  to see a longer, more detailed description of historical trends and events in the United States.

Period 1: 1491-1607

• Timeline of Significant Events (1650 and earlier)
• "New World" beginnings
• Early English settlement

Period 2: 1607-1754

• Timeline of Significant Events (1650-1750)
• Settlement of the Northern colonies
• American life in the 17th century
• Colonial society leading up to the Revolution
• The fight for control of North America

Period 3: 1754-1800

• Timeline of Significant Events (1750-1775)
• The road to the American Revolution
• Timeline of Significant Events (1775-1800)
• Seceding from the British Empire
• The Confederation and the Constitution
• Starting up a new government

Period 4: 1800-1848

• Timeline of Significant Events (1800-1825)
• The Jeffersonian Republic
• Nationalism and the second war for independence
• Formation of a national economy
• Timeline of Significant Events (1825-1850)
• The rise of a mass democracy
• The ferment of reform and culture
• Controversy over slavery

Period 5: 1844-1877

• Timeline of Significant Events (1850-1875)
• Manifest destiny and its legacy
• The sectional struggle
• Leading up to the Civil War
• Civil War Part 1
• Civil War Part 2
• Reconstruction

Period 6: 1865-1898

• Timeline of Significant Events (1875-1900)
• Politics in the Gilded Age
• Industrial progress
• Development of cities
• Agricultural revolution and the West
• American imperialism

Period 7: 1890-1945

• Timeline of Significant Events (1900-1920)
• America on the world stage
• Progressivism and Theodore Roosevelt's presidency
• Wilsonian progressivism at home and abroad
• World War I
• Timeline of Significant Events (1920-1940)
• The Roaring Twenties
• Economic Boom and Bust
• The Great Depression and the New Deal
• FDR Presidency and the Road to WW2
• World War II

Period 8: 1945-1980

• Timeline of Significant Events (1940-1960)
• Start of the Cold War
• Eisenhower Era
• Timeline of Significant Events (1960-1970)
• Political and social unrest in the sixties
• Timeline of Significant Events (1970-1980)
• Stagnation in the seventies

Period 9: 1980-Present

• Timeline of Significant Events (1980-1990)
• Resurgence of Conservatism
• Clinton presidency and post-Cold War era
• Timeline of Significant Events (2000-Present)
• The start of the new century

Quick Reference Sheets

Here are some quick reference sheets you can use for further AP US History prep.

APUSH Teacher Creations

• Interactive timeline of major historical events in the US through 2015

CourseNotes

• Political parties in US History
• Important political documents in US History
• Important Supreme Court cases

Additional AP US History Resources to Test Your Knowledge

Here are some print and online resources you can use to review for the AP US History exam and smaller portions of the curriculum throughout the school year.

AP US History Review Books

Though not free, AP prep books can be excellent resources for your prep. Here are a few books we recommend getting your hands on :

• The Princeton Review's Cracking the AP US History Exam, 2022 Premium Edition
• Kaplan's AP US History Prep Plus 2020 & 2021
• REA's AP US History Crash Course for the 2020 Exam, 5th Edition

Read our full article on the best review books for APUSH for more details and advice!

Official College Board Materials

The following AP US History practice questions come directly from the College Board, so they're the most accurate representations of what you can expect on the actual test. Try to save these resources for later in your studying to get an accurate reading of your strengths and weaknesses when you're about to take the exam.

Note that older materials (pre-2019) are not aligned with the current exam format , so you will have to tweak your prep a bit to make them work.

• 2020 AP US History Course and Exam Description
• 2017 APUSH Practice Exam
• APUSH Free-Response Questions, 2015-2020 and 2021

Get more guidance on how to use official practice resources in our collection of APUSH practice tests .

Unofficial Practice Materials

Although College Board materials are the gold standard when it comes to APUSH prep, there are some good-quality unofficial resources you can make use of, too. Here are the best ones.

Quizlet Flashcards and Quizzes

These student-created sets of flashcards cover every single aspect of AP US History. You can study different sets depending on where you are in the course or which areas need the most improvement. After studying the terms, you can play games to review them and test your factual recall!

Historyteacher.net Mini Practice Quizzes

This site offers mini practice quizzes for every topic covered in the APUSH course . There are multiple-choice questions as well as "short-answer" questions (you get a drop-down menu of 12 answer choices). These won't help much with the more analytical elements of the test, but if you want to test your knowledge of facts, they'll serve you well.

Albert.io AP US History Practice Quizzes

Albert provides a series of quizzes on every topic in the current APUSH curriculum. As you go through them, the site gives you stats showing how you performed on questions of varying difficulty levels . This should help you figure out whether you've truly mastered the material.

Practice Quizzes for The American Pageant , 12th Edition

This helpful site contains chapter-by-chapter practice quizzes based on an old edition of The American Pageant APUSH textbook. Questions are multiple choice and true/false. This resource is more helpful for factual recall than for analysis questions.

CourseNotes AP US History Practice Quizzes

CourseNotes offers a total of six pages of multiple-choice quizzes on all the topics you need to know for the AP US History exam. Nice!

Varsity Tutors AP US History Practice Quizzes

A well-known test-prep company, Varsity Tutors has short multiple-choice practice quizzes on every APUSH topic as well.

Matching and Multiple-Choice Short Practice Quizzes

This website has sets of matching and multiple-choice questions for every period in US History.

They've got questions; YOU'VE got answers!

Wrap-Up: Making the Most of This AP US History Study Guide

AP US History covers eight major themes across nine time periods. It's hard to study this much material, which is why it's good to have a game plan!

To recap, the steps we recommend taking for your APUSH prep are:

#1: Take a full practice test #2: Catalog your mistakes #3: Study relevant content areas and practice multiple-choice questions #4: Practice planning and writing essays #5: Take a second full practice test

You can repeat these steps as necessary depending on how much you need to improve. As you review, also keep a few key tips in mind:

• Make thematic connections
• Read and repeat
• Practice writing essays frequently

Use the AP US History notes and resources provided above to get yourself up to speed. Also, make sure to start studying for the final exam at least one or two months before test day, so you're not going to be forced to cram for it!

What's Next?

Want more practice with Document-Based Questions? We've got an in-depth article on the best resources for DBQs that you can use in your studying.

Need even more APUSH study materials? Check out our complete list of free AP US History practice tests .

You can also check out our complete study guide to the New York US History Regents Exam . If you take it right after the AP US History exam, you might not need to study much at all!

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

Samantha is a blog content writer for PrepScholar. Her goal is to help students adopt a less stressful view of standardized testing and other academic challenges through her articles. Samantha is also passionate about art and graduated with honors from Dartmouth College as a Studio Art major in 2014. In high school, she earned a 2400 on the SAT, 5's on all seven of her AP tests, and was named a National Merit Scholar.

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AP® US History

Ensuring your students earn the contextualization point on the dbq.

• The Albert Team
• Last Updated On: March 1, 2022

The redesign has brought a great deal of uncertainty and confusion amongst APUSH teachers.  In many ways, we are all “rookie” teachers, as all of us have the challenge of implementing fundamental curricular and skills-based changes into our classrooms.

One of the more significant changes is to the structure of one essay on the AP® exam, the Document Based question (DBQ).  The rubric for the DBQ was previously a more holistic essay that combined a strong thesis, and use of documents and outside information to support the argument.  This has been transformed into a much more structured and formulaic skills-based rubric.  The change has led to a healthy debate about the pros and cons of both types of essays, but in general the core of the essay has remained the same: write a thesis and support it with evidence in the form of documents and outside information.  If students continue to apply these basic writing skills, they are likely to earn 3 or 4 out of the seven total points for the Document Based Question .

In this post, we will explore one of these points students will be looking to earn to help their chances at passing the APUSH exam this May: the Contextualization point.

What is Contextualization?

According to the College Board, contextualization refers to a:

Historical thinking skill that involves the ability to connect historical events and processes to specific circumstances of time and place as well as broader regional, national, or global processes. ( College Board AP® Course and Exam Description, AP® US History, Fall 2015 )

Contextualization is a critical historical thinking skill that is featured in the newly redesigned course. In my opinion, this is a skill of fundamental importance for students to utilize in the classroom.  Often times, students find history difficult or boring because they don’t see connections between different historical time periods and the world they live in today.  They assume that events occur in a vacuum, and don’t realize that the historical context is critical in helping explain people’s beliefs and points of view in that period of time.  Putting events into context is something I always thought was important, but now that the College Board explicitly has established the skill, it has forced me to be more proactive in creating lessons and assignments that allow students to utilize this way of thinking.

The place that contextualization is most directly relevant on the actual AP® exam itself is the Document Based Question.  In order to earn the point for contextualization, students must:

Situate historical events, developments, or processes within the broader regional, national, or global context in which they occurred in order to draw conclusions about their relative significance. (College Board AP® Course and Exam Description, AP® US History, Fall 2015)

In other words, students are asked to provide background before jumping right into their thesis and essay and paint a picture of what is going on at the time of the prompt.  Although there is no specific requirement as to where contextualization should occur, it makes natural sense to place it in the introduction right before a thesis point.  Placing this historical background right at the beginning sets the stage for the argument that will occur in the body of the essay, and is consistent with expectations many English teachers have in how to write an introduction paragraph.

I explain contextualization to students by using the example of Star Wars.  Before the movie starts, the film begins with “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” and continues with background information on the characters, events, and other information that is crucial to understanding the film.  Without this context, the viewer would not know what is going on, and might miss key events or be lost throughout the film.  This is what contextualization aims to do in student essays.  It sets the stage for their thesis, evidence, and argument that is to follow.

Contextualization vs. Historical Context

One aspect of the DBQ rubric that can be a bit confusing initially is that students are asked to do this contextualization, but there is also another area which gives them the option to use historical context.  So what is the difference?

Contextualization refers to putting the entire essay into a broader context (preferably in the introduction).  However, when writing their essays, students are also required to analyze four of the documents that they utilize by either examining the author’s point of view, describing the intended audience of the source, identifying the author’s purpose or putting the source into historical context. The latter sounds similar to contextualization (and it is essentially the same skill), but historical context is only focused on the specific document being analyzed, not the entire essay, like the contextualization point.  For example, if a document is a map that shows slavery growing dramatically from 1820 to 1860, a student might point out that this growth can be explained in the context of the development of the cotton gin, which made the production of cotton much more profitable and let to the spread of slavery in the Deep South.  While essentially the same skill, historical context focuses on one specific document’s background.

Examples of Successful Student Contextualization Points

One of the biggest pitfalls that prevent students from earning the contextualization point is that they are too brief or vague.  In general, it would be difficult for students to earn the point if they are writing only a sentence or two.  Early in the year, I assigned students a DBQ based on the following prompt:

Evaluate the extent in which the Civil War was a turning point in the lives of African Americans in the United States.  Use the documents and your knowledge of the years 1860-1877 to construct your response.

This was the third DBQ we had written, and students were now getting brave enough to move beyond a thesis and document analysis and started attempting to tackle the contextualization point. However, the attempts were all over the map. One student wrote:

The Civil War was a bloody event that led to the death of thousands of Americans.

Of course this is a true statement, but is extremely vague.  What led to the Civil War?  Why was it so deadly?  Without any specific detail, this student could not earn the contextualization point.

Another student wrote:

Slavery had existed for hundreds of years in the United States.  It was a terrible thing that had to be abolished.

Again, this is a drive-by attempt at earning contextualization.  It mentions things that are true, but lacks any meaningful details or explanation that would demonstrate understanding of the time period in discussion.  What led to the beginning of slavery in the colonies?  How did it develop?  What made it so horrible?  How did individuals resist and protest slavery?  These are the types of details that would add meaning to contextualization.

One student nailed it.  She wrote:

The peculiar institution of slavery had been a part of America’s identity since the founding of the original English colony at Jamestown.  In the early years, compromise was key to avoiding the moral question, but as America entered the mid 19th century sectional tensions and crises with popular sovereignty, Kansas, and fugitive slaves made the issue increasingly unavoidable.  When the Civil War began, the war was transformed from one to simply save the Union to a battle for the future of slavery and freedom in the United States.

Now THAT is contextualization!  It gives specific details about the beginning of slavery and its development.  It discusses attempts at compromise, but increasing sectional tensions that led to the Civil War.  The writer paints a vivid and clear picture of the situation, events, and people that set the stage for the Civil War.  Students don’t want to write a 6-8 sentence paragraph (they will want to save time for their argument in the body), but they need to do more than write a vague sentence that superficially addresses the era.

Strategies for Teaching Contextualization to Students

Analyze Lots of Primary Sources One of the best ways to prepare for the DBQ is for students to practice reading and comprehending primary source texts, particularly texts that are written by people who use very different language and sentence structure from today.  This helps them understand and analyze documents, but it also can be helpful in practicing contextualization.  Looking at different perspectives and points of view in the actual historical time periods they are learning is key in allowing students to understand how the era can impact beliefs, values and events that occur.

Assign Many DBQ Assessments and Share Specific Examples The more often students write DBQs, the more comfortable students will get with the entire process and skill set involved, including contextualization.  One thing that has been especially successful in my classroom is to collect a handful of student attempts at the contextualization point and share them with students.  Students then get to examine them and look at effective and less effective attempts at earning contextualization.  Often the best way for students to learn what to do or how to improve is to see what their classmates have done.

Incorporating In-Class Activities The course is broken into nine distinct time periods from 1491 to present.  In each period or unit students are assigned activities that force them to put a specific policy, event, or movement into context.  For example, we did lecture notes on the presidency of JFK, learning about the Man on the Moon Speech, Cuban Missile Crisis, and creation of the Peace Corps.  Students had to write 3-4 sentences that asked them to put these events in historical context using the Cold War.  This allowed students to understand that each of these seemingly unrelated historical events were shaped by the tension between the United States and Soviet Union: winning the space race, stopping a communist nuclear threat less than 100 miles from Florida, and spreading goodwill into nations that might otherwise turn to communism all are strategies the United States used to thwart the Soviet threat.  By doing this activity, students gain an appreciation for how historical context shapes events and decisions of the day.

Teach Cause and Effect in United States History It is very easy to get caught up as a teacher in how to best get lots of minutia and factoids into students heads quickly and efficiently.  However, if we can teach history not as a series of independent and unrelated events, but as a series of events that have a causal relationship that impact what happens next, this helps students grasp and understand contextualization.  For example, in the lead-up to World War I, students create a timeline of events that led to America entering the conflict.  As students examine the torpedoing of the Lusitania, unrestricted submarine warfare, the Zimmermann telegram, etc., they gain an understanding that it was not a random decision by President Wilson, but rather a series of events that precipitated the declaration of war.  This is what contextualization is: the background that sets the stage for a particular moment in American history.

Examine Contextualization with Current Events I know what you are thinking, I have one school year (less if your school year starts in September) to get through 1491 to Present and now I am supposed to make this a current events class as well?  The answer is yes and no.  Will stuff from the news pages be content the students need to know for the exam: absolutely not.  However, it is a great opportunity for students to understand that our past explains why our country is what it is today.

For example, President Obama’s decision to work towards normalizing relations with Cuba makes more sense if students think about it through the lens of contextualization.  The United States invaded Cuba in 1898 in the Spanish-American War and set up a protectorate.  Cubans, upset with what they perceived as U.S. meddling and intervention led a communist revolution in 1959, ousting the American-backed government and setting the stage for one of the scariest moments in the Cold War : the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Looking at how the past shapes current events today helps students understand this skill, and it also helps them gain a deeper appreciation of how important history is in shaping the world around them.

Any time changes happen, there is a temptation to be reactionary and reject them.  I have found that by being more deliberate about helping students understand historical context, their engagement and understanding have improved significantly.  Teachers always are fighting that battle between covering the content (which is daunting in an AP® course) and helping students understand the “so what?” question.  Why does this matter to me?  By making connections, students can see that history does not every happen in a vacuum.  Our shared narrative is a series of events and ideas that continuously evolve and build off of each other.  When students gain a firm understanding of how the past impacts their lives today, it makes learning way more meaningful and fun.

Contextualization is tough for students at first, but it is a skill application that can be perfected and improved to maximize your students’ chances of earning that point and rocking the AP® exam.

Looking for AP® US History practice?

Kickstart your AP® US History prep with Albert. Start your AP® exam prep today .

We also go over five-steps to writing effective FRQs for AP® US History in this video:

Ben Hubing is an educator at Greendale High School in Greendale, Wisconsin.  Ben has taught AP® U.S. History and AP® U.S. Government and Politics for the last eight years and was a reader last year for the AP® U.S. History Short Answer.  Ben earned his Bachelors degree at The University of Wisconsin-Madison and Masters degree at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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AP World Long Essay Question (LEQ) Overview

15 min read • may 10, 2022

Zaina Siddiqi

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Overview of the Long Essay Question (LEQ)

Section II of the AP Exam includes three Long Essay Question (LEQ) prompts. You will choose to write about just one of these. 

The formatting of prompts varies somewhat between the AP Histories, though the rubric does not. In AP World History, the prompt includes a sentence that orients the writer to the time, place, and theme of the prompt topic, while prompts in AP US History and AP European History typically do not. However, the rubrics and scoring guidelines are the same for all Histories.

Your answer should include the following:

A valid thesis

A discussion of relevant historical context

Use of evidence supports your thesis

Use of a reasoning skill to organize and structure the argument

Complex understanding of the topic of the prompt

We will break down each of these aspects in the next section. For now, the gist is that you need to write an essay that answers the prompt, using evidence. You will need to structure and develop your essay using one of the course reasoning skills.

Many of the skills you need to write a successful LEQ essay are the same skills you will use on the DBQ. In fact, some of the rubric points are identical, so you can use a lot of the same strategies on both writing tasks!

You will have three choices of prompts for your LEQ. All three prompts will focus on the same reasoning skills, but the time periods will differ in each prompt. Prompt topics may span across time periods specified in the course outline, and the time period breakdowns for each prompt are as follows:

Writing time on the AP Exam includes both the Document Based Question (DBQ) and the (LEQ), but it is suggested that you spend 40 minutes completing the LEQ. You will need to plan and write your essay in that time.

A good breakdown would be 5 min. (planning) + 35 min. (writing) = 40 min.

The LEQ is scored on a rubric out of six points, and is weighted at 15% of your overall exam score. We’ll break down the rubric next.

How to Rock the LEQ: The Rubric

The LEQ is scored on a six point rubric, and each point can be earned independently. That means you can miss a point on something and still earn other points with the great parts of your essay.

Note: all of the examples in this section will be for this prompt from AP World History: Modern. You could use similar language, structure, or skills to write samples for prompts in AP US History or AP European History.

Let’s break down each rubric component...

What is it?

The thesis is a brief statement that introduces your argument or claim, and can be supported with evidence and analysis. This is where you answer the prompt.

Where do I write it?

This is the only element in the essay that has a required location. The thesis needs to be in your introduction or conclusion of your essay. It can be more than one sentence, but all of the sentences that make up your thesis must be consecutive in order to count.

How do I know if mine is good?

The most important part of your thesis is the claim , which is your answer to the prompt. The description the College-Board gives is that it should be “historically defensible,” which really means that your evidence must be plausible. On the LEQ, your thesis needs to be related topic of the prompt.

Your thesis should also establish your line of reasoning. Translation: address why or how something happened - think of this as the “because” to the implied “how/why” of the prompt. This sets up the framework for the body of your essay, since you can use the reasoning from your thesis to structure your body paragraph topics later.

The claim and reasoning are the required elements of the thesis. And if that’s all you can do, you’re in good shape to earn the point. 

Going above-and-beyond to create a more complex thesis can help you in the long run, so it’s worth your time to try. One way to build in complexity to your thesis is to think about a counter-claim or alternate viewpoint that is relevant to your response. If you are using one of the course reasoning process to structure your essay (and you should!) think about using that framework for your thesis too.

In a causation essay, a complex argument addresses causes and effects.

In a comparison essay, a complex argument addresses similarities and differences.

In a continuity and change over time essay, a complex argument addresses change and continuity .

This counter-claim or alternate viewpoint can look like an “although” or “however” phrase in your thesis.

Powers in both land-based and maritime empires had to adapt their rule to accommodate diverse populations. However, in this era land-based empires were more focused on direct political control, while the maritime empires were more based on trade and economic development.

This thesis works because it clearly addresses the prompt (comparing land and maritime empires). It starts by addressing a similarity, and then specifies a clear difference with a line of reasoning to clarify the actions of the land vs. maritime empires.

Contextualization

Contextualization is a brief statement that lays out the broader historical background relevant to the prompt.

There are a lot of good metaphors out there for contextualization, including the “previously on…” at the beginning of some TV shows, or the famous text crawl at the beginning of the Star Wars movies.

Both of these examples serve the same function: they give important information about what has happened off-screen that the audience needs to know to understand what is about to happen on-screen.

In your essay, contextualization is the same. You give your reader information about what else has happened, or is happening, in history that will help them understand the specific topic and argument you are about to make.

There is no specific requirement for where contextualization must appear in your essay. The easiest place to include it, however, is in your introduction . Use context to get your reader acquainted with the time, place, and theme of your essay, then transition into your thesis.

Good contextualization doesn’t have to be long, and it doesn’t have to go into a ton of detail, but it does need to do a few very specific things.

Your contextualization needs to refer to events, developments and/or processes outside the time and place of the prompt. It could address something that occurred in an earlier era in the same region as the topic of the prompt, or it could address something happening at the same time as the prompt, but in a different place. Briefly describe this outside information.

Then, connect it to your thesis/argument. The language from the College Board is that contextualization must be “relevant to the prompt,” and in practical terms this means you have to show the connection. A transition sentence or phrase is useful here (plus, this is why contextualization makes the most sense in the introduction!)

Also, contextualization needs to be multiple consecutive sentences, so it’s all one argument (not sprinkled around in a paragraph). The introduction is the best place for contextualization, but not the only place. 

Basically, choose a connected topic that “sets the stage” for your thesis, and briefly describe it in a couple sentences. Then, make a clear connection to the argument of your thesis from that outside information.

In the period 1450-1750, both European and Asian powers expanded their reach and created large empires across the world. In Asia, the trend was toward large, land-based empires which were controlled from a central capital city. Europeans built empires that stretched across oceans included territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

This contextualization works by addressing the time period of the prompt and establishing basic definitions for empire-building and the types of empires (land and maritimes.) These definitions will be valuable context for seeing the comparisons developed in the thesis and body paragraphs of this essay.

Evidence: Provide Specific Examples

For this point, the focus is simply about having evidence. Evidence is the historical detail you include in your writing. The specific facts and examples that prove your argument. In the LEQ, your evidence comes your knowledge of history. 

Evidence goes in your body paragraphs. In fact, the bulk of your body paragraphs will be made up of evidence and supporting analysis or commentary that connects that evidence to other evidence and/or to the argument you are making.

Good evidence is specific, accurate, and relevant to the prompt. For this point, simply including multiple pieces of quality evidence is enough. If you’re a numbers person, a good starting point is to aim for two pieces of quality evidence in each body paragraph and go up from there.

In order for your evidence to count for this point, it needs to be really specific. Using course-specific vocabulary is a great strategy here to know that you are writing specific evidence. If you can’t remember a specific vocabulary term, describe what you mean in plain language with as much detail as possible.

Though the Ottoman Sultans were Muslims, they ruled over a population that included fellow Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

This evidence works because it includes specific and relevant details, namely the religions of both the Ottoman rulers and the diverse population they ruled over.

Evidence: Supports an Argument with Evidence

In addition to having evidence, this point is about using that evidence to support an argument in response to the prompt. Basically, connect your evidence back to your topic sentence and/or thesis.

Supporting statements go with your evidence in your body paragraph. Ideally, a connecting statement comes right before or after a piece of evidence. 

This point is harder to earn than the previous evidence point, because it’s a little more difficult to explain fully. 

One way to know if you are doing this at all is to look at the topic sentences of your body paragraphs. First of all, do you have one? You should. The first sentence of your body paragraph should make it clear what you are talking about in that paragraph. It should relate to some aspect of your thesis, and it should be connected to the reasoning skill you have chosen to organize your argument.

One characteristic shared by both kinds of empires was the need to adapt to diverse populations. As the Ottoman empire expanded its influence, it took over territory previously controlled by the Byzantines. Though the Ottoman Sultans were Muslims, they now ruled over a population that included fellow Muslims, Christians, and Jews. In order to keep peace within their empire, the Ottomans allowed people to continue practicing their traditional faiths. Ottoman cities such as Istanbul had areas of the cities set aside where different groups could live and worship without interference from others .

This section works because it defines the adaptation made by Ottoman rulers to effectively rule a diverse population, and elaborates on both how and why that adaptation was made.

Following your topic sentence, your body paragraph should elaborate on the idea in that topic sentence, using the evidence to prove your point. At first, you may rely on phrases like “this shows…” or “this means…,” which can get repetitive, but may also help you know when you are making the connections between evidence and argument explicit.

Analysis and Reasoning: Historical Reasoning

A good argument needs structure, and yours needs to use one of the course reasoning skills to create that structure. You can choose whichever skill works best for a particular prompt: causation , comparison , or continuity and change over time .

Strong reasoning goes throughout an essay, so this will be the overarching structure of your writing from the thesis through your body paragraphs.

The reasoning doesn’t necessarily have to be completely balanced or even in order to count, which gives you room to write about what you know best. For example, in an essay structured around continuity and change, you might spend most of your time addressing changes and relatively little time addressing continuity. And that’s ok.

The best essays do address both “sides” of the historical reasoning, and yours should too. If you created a complex thesis in your introduction, you can extend those ideas into your body paragraphs. Even if you don’t have equal sentences or paragraphs for each topic, as long as you address the reasoning process in your essay, you’re on the right track.

Analysis and Reasoning: Complexity

The second part of the Analysis and Reasoning scoring category is complexity. This is by far the most challenging part of the LEQ, and the point earned by the fewest students. It isn’t impossible, just difficult. Part of the difficulty is that it is the least concrete skill to teach and practice.

If you’re already feeling overwhelmed by the time limits of the LEQ, don’t stress about complexity. Focus on writing the best essay you can that answers the prompt. Plenty of students earn 5’s without the complexity point.

If you are ready to tackle this challenge, keep reading!

The College Board awards this point for essays that “demonstrate a complex understanding” of the topic of the prompt.

Complexity cannot be earned with a single sentence or phrase. It must show up throughout the essay. 

A complex argument starts with a complex thesis. A complex thesis must address the topic of the prompt in more than one way. Including a counter-claim or alternate viewpoint in the thesis is a good way to set up a complex argument, because it builds in room within the structure of your essay to address more than one idea (provided your body paragraphs follow the structure of your thesis!)

A complex argument may include corroboration - evidence that supports or confirms the premise of the argument. Clear explanation that connects each piece of evidence to the thesis will help do this. In the LEQ, your evidence is all from your knowledge of history, so it’s up to you to fully explain how that evidence backs up your thesis. Consistent, thoughtful explanation can go a long way toward the complexity point.

A complex argument may also include qualification - evidence that limits or counters an initial claim. This isn’t the same as undoing or undermining your claim. Qualifying a claim shows that it isn’t universal. An example of this might be including continuity in an essay that is primarily about change.

A final way to introduce complexity to your argument is through modification - using evidence to change your claim or argument as it develops. Modification isn’t quite as extreme as qualification, but it shows that the initial claim may be too simple to encompass the reality of history.

Since no single sentence can demonstrate complexity on its own, it’s difficult to show examples of complex arguments. Fully discussing your claim and its line of reasoning, and fairly addressing your counter-claim or alternate view is the strongest structure to aim for a complexity point. Explain everything as you go and aim for success!

How to Rock the LEQ: The Process

Before you start writing....

It is tempting to just start writing at the beginning of your LEQ time, especially if you took extra time to write your DBQ and you’re feeling some pressure. It’s actually better to take a few minutes to analyze the prompt and plan your essay before you start writing to give yourself the best shot at success. You might surprise yourself with how quickly an essay comes together after you create a solid plan.

The very first thing you should do with any prompt is to be sure you understand the question . Misunderstanding the time period, topic, or geographic region of a prompt can kill a thoughtful and well-argued essay. When you’re practicing early in the year, go ahead and re-write the prompt as a question. Later on you can re-phrase it mentally without all the work.

As you think about the question, start thinking about which reasoning skill might apply best for this prompt: causation, comparison, or continuity and change over time. 

Original prompt - Develop an argument that compares the process of empire building in land-based and maritime empires in the period 1450-1750 CE. 

Revised - What were the key similarities and differences in the ways that land-based (Asian) and maritime (European) empires built their governments and power between 1450-1750?

Now that you know what you’re writing about, take a few minutes to brainstorm what you know about that topic. You can make a simple graphic organizer to help you see relationships between information (i.e. a Venn diagram, T-chart, timeline, etc.), or just jot down ideas as they come to mind.

Go back over you list and mark which ideas work best as context (generally broader and less related to the prompt) and which ideas work best as evidence (more specific.)

If you have time, brainstorm a sample thesis and/or outline for how you want to structure your ideas. This may seem like an extravagance with limited time, but it can be a great cheat sheet for you if you lose your way in the middle of a body paragraph.

When you have a plan you like, start writing!

Writing the essay

Your introduction should include your contextualization and thesis. Start with a statement that establishes your time and place in history, and follow that with a brief description of the historical situation. Connect that broader context to the theme and topic of the prompt. Then, make a claim that answers the prompt, with an overview of your reasoning and any counter-claim you plan to address.

Body paragraphs will vary in length, depending on how many documents or other pieces of evidence you include, but should follow a consistent structure. Start with a topic sentence that introduces the specific aspect of the prompt that paragraph will address. There aren’t specific points for topic sentences, but they will help you stay focused.

Follow your topic sentence with a piece of evidence and connect it back to your topic sentence and/or thesis. Continue with 1-2 pieces of evidence and more explanation until you have completed the argument of your topic sentence. Then start a new paragraph with a new topic sentence.

Each body paragraph will follow this general format, and there is no set number of paragraphs for the LEQ (minimum or maximum.) Write as many paragraphs as you need to fully answer the prompt by developing the argument (and counter-argument if applicable) from your thesis.

If you have time, you may choose to write a conclusion . It isn’t necessary, so you can drop it if you’re rushed. BUT, the conclusion is the only place where you can earn the thesis point outside the introduction, so it’s not a bad idea. You could re-state your thesis in new wording, or give any final thoughts in terms of analysis about your topic. You might solidify your complexity point in the conclusion if written well.

Since most people write the DBQ first, when you finish the LEQ you’re done with your AP Exam. Congratulations!

Sample Prompts

AP World History: Modern

In the period 1450-1750 CE, empires achieved increased scope and influence around the world, shaping and being shaped by the diverse populations they incorporated.

Develop an argument that compares the process of empire building in land-based and maritime empires in the period 1450-1750 CE.

AP US History

Evaluate the extent to which Massachusetts and Virginia differed in the ways that economic development affected their politics between 1607 and 1750.

AP European History

Evaluate the effectiveness of challenges to royal authority in Eastern Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The LEQ Rubric (Quick Reference)

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Hesburgh Library Desks: The Documented History of Students

By Ellie McCarthy

Published: June 06, 2024

3rd place McPartlin Award

Most students at the University of Notre Dame are familiar with the fourteen-storied Hesburgh Library, a place where students and professors alike can be found completing their daily assignments or collaborating on projects. However, the first floor’s modern design fades as you make your way up each story and history fills the space. Newly painted walls turn to yellow and stained, padded spinning-chairs become solid, wooden posture correctors instead of lounge devices, and bookshelves cram the space, turning each floor into a labyrinth of knowledge.

Not only does the library age as each story gives way to the next, the seemingly untouched first floor lobby becomes a plethora of student thoughts, feelings, hopes, frustrations, stresses, politics, and jokes carved or inked into the old wooden desks. Somewhat blundering your way through the maze of books, you will eventually find collections of wooden panels joined together in a manner that I can only describe as “study cells.” 3-inch thick wooden shields separate each desk from its neighbors, which I assume had the original intention of providing privacy and focus to the student who chose to study there. However, these shields have adopted a new purpose and have been “improved upon” by generations of students and their selected mediums: sharpie, pen, pencil, marker, carving, etc. At Notre Dame, the most vandalized spaces on campus, Hesburgh Library desks, are the epitome of student connection.

While seated on a squeaky wooden chair paired with a similarly designed desk, we are subject to the influences of previous students; thoughts, quotes, and drawings forever etched into the wood leave their mark on generations of students.

 Comments such as “finals suck” or “Dear ND, Thank you for gray hair at 20 years old” provide a pathway into the minds of previous students and allow for a sense of empathy among current and future desk users. Just as researchers and archaeologists discover the patterns of life among past civilizations through artifacts, present-day students can connect with the previous generations and add their “2 cents” to the ever-evolving documentation of life at Notre Dame which is recorded in the wood of the library desks.

Students don’t only comment on their academic endeavors; they share thoughts that would otherwise be kept private. While working on my chemistry homework, I noticed a message that read “I’m in love with my best friend, but he will never know.” Reading such a personal remark made me recognize the power of leaving a message behind. The desks provide an anonymity that other forms of release cannot offer. With journals, your thoughts and statements can be tied back to you, but with graffiti, unless you sign your name, no one will know who is responsible for any comment. This form of journaling allows present students to look to the penciled-in words of past graduates as a means of validating their own feelings. In this way, the desks provide a means of connection between not only present students, but through generations of Notre Dame alumni.

The desks aren’t all marred by school stresses and unrequited love. 

 Humor is ever-present in the desks’ vandalism and elicits a smile (at least internally) any time it’s noticed. On the 9th floor, a glorious line art image of Dwight Schrute blesses the eye of any student who happens to walk past it. The unmistakable ode to such a widespread source of comedy undoubtedly sparks joy or at least recognition in those lucky enough to witness it. Dwight’s portrait is surrounded by “lol” and “you win” which signifies a connection between students that you don’t get anywhere else on campus.

There are no external pressures that prevent people from commenting on something they like or dislike. In the real world, someone might refrain from complimenting someone else’s outfit due to social anxiety or the possibility of awkwardness. In an anonymous environment such as the library desks, no one has to know who is tied to a comment or a drawing, leaving them unfiltered. Students can merely express themselves without feeling limited.

The desks provide a blank canvas for students as walls, train cars, and highways do for graffiti artists. Leaving an addition to the wood allows the students to establish their own sense of permanence and an infinite, concrete tie to the university. While the Notre Dame Alumni Association spans multiple generations and promises that every alum will forever be part of the Notre Dame community, many may also relish in the comforting thought that since their words or drawings remain, they cannot be forgotten.

Unfinished lyrics to the classic “Mr. Brightside” make an appearance on 

 the 12th floor with the wish of being completed. However, “open up my eager eyes, ‘cause I’m…” is met with “Man, please stop crying.” This somewhat failed attempt at “finish the lyric” provides another example of the humor the desks carry. Being one of the university’s traditional football game songs, the student’s choice to write the lyrics of “Mr. Brightside” creates a sense of community and belonging. Most, if not all students at Notre Dame know that singing this classic tune during a football game is one of the student section’s favorite events. When reading the lyrics inked into the wooden desk, anyone with the knowledge of Notre Dame’s connection to “Mr. Brightside” may recall a game memory or experience a sense of familiarity.

Notre Dame students have also expressed optimism and well wishes to their fellow peers, 

 creating an environment of support and camaraderie. I’ve seen numerous quotes, some of my favorites being: “I wish you all the best in life: a few good pals, a couple of miracles, and a good pair ‘a socks” and “Live like you mean it. Love ‘till you feel it. - the goo goo dolls.” Whether these students were truly making an effort to positively impact someone or were merely suffering from boredom, is uncertain. However, the result is the same. These quotes elicited a smile from me as I’m sure they did many others.

While Notre Dame prides itself on its founding history and tradition, the Hesburgh library desks provide a history of Notre Dame students, the foundation of community on campus. Father Theodore Hesburgh, whom the library was named after, was committed to developing the institution into a place of intellect and faith ( An extraordinary life ) since the university had previously been known for its athletic successes. Following Father Hesburgh’s plan for the library, its mission states: “Hesburgh Libraries cultivate curiosity and discovery as a hub for intellectual life. We advance the University’s research, teaching, and learning goals while fostering Notre Dame’s engagement with the global scholarly community.” However, I would argue that the statement is missing an important aspect: fostering student collaboration and community.

There is no doubt that the old study cells have provided a means of connection between students and their peers even if that wasn’t the original intention for them. Quite contrastingly, their construction seems to encourage a separation between desk users. The desks have fulfilled the Hesburgh mission of cultivating academic excellence by granting students a quiet, secluded place to study. However, it’s important to note that they’ve done so much more. From stress and frustrations to hope and humor, the desks have allowed for a timeless community to blossom.

For that reason, I propose an amendment to the current mission statement. The addition of “fostering student collaboration and community” to the statement would further support Notre Dame’s commitment to its students, faculty, and alumni. It would also set a precedent for continued community-building within the university; especially in Hesburgh Library.

With each school year, new students filter in and out of campus, creating a dynamic community, but a Notre Dame community nonetheless. The university proudly acknowledges its alumni network for almost every major event, promotes the successes of current students, and extends a warm welcome to future Notre Dame families. By doing so, the university creates the notion that Notre Dame is a compilation of its past, present, and future.

Through somewhat unorthodox and not fully supported means, students have found a way to foster community through generations and preserve the memory of past students. In doing so, we have supported Notre Dame’s commitment to its students and promoted the pillars of community and connection.

Some might view the old desks as disgustingly vandalized property; an unfortunate misuse of a study space. In a way, they would be right. Along with the documented stresses and warm wishes, are the classic graffiti encouragements to “commit tax fraud” and “do coke”. The desks no longer appear pristine and inviting as do the new study lounges on the first and second floors. However, what they lack in appearance, they make up for with substance. Beyond the surface-level defacing of school property lies a Notre Dame history that is separate, but just as significant, as the university’s founding. I want to be clear that I am not condoning the vandalism of any space on the Notre Dame campus. I am merely expressing my appreciation and acknowledgement of the history now embedded into the Hesburgh library desks.

What is the significance of the vandalized desks? Are they art? Are they merely defaced property? They are more than both. They are our history.

Works Cited

An extraordinary life. “An Extraordinary Life.” Father Hesburgh , University of Notre Dame , 2023, hesburgh.nd.edu/fr-teds-life/an-extraordinary-life/ .

Mission. “Mission and Vision.” Hesburgh Library , University of Notre Dame , www.library.nd.edu/mission-vision#:~:text=Hesburgh%20Libraries%20cultivates%20curiosity%20and,with%20the%20global%20scholarly%20community . Accessed 12 Oct. 2023.

Ellie McCarthy

In her essay, “Hesburgh Library Desks: The Documented History of Students,” Ellie discusses the rhetorical significance of vandalized study spaces and offers the novel perspective that vandalism fosters student connection. As a Neuroscience and Behavior major, Ellie’s long hours spent studying in the library allowed her to explore the many layers of Hesburgh where she discovered past students’ additions to the desks. Her personal reactions to the drawings, quotes, and well-wishes inspired her to analyze the connection between Notre Dame students of the past, present, and future. Ellie aims to pursue a career in physical therapy where she hopes to study the potential impacts of mentality on the recovery process. She would like to thank her parents (ND class of 1997) for introducing her to Notre Dame and the opportunities it presents. Ellie would also like to thank Professor Jessica Thomas for inspiring her and contributing to her newfound passion for writing.

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PROOF POINTS: AI writing feedback ‘better than I thought,’ top researcher says

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This week I challenged my editor to face off against a machine. Barbara Kantrowitz gamely accepted, under one condition: “You have to file early.”  Ever since ChatGPT arrived in 2022, many journalists have made a public stunt out of asking the new generation of artificial intelligence to write their stories. Those AI stories were often bland and sprinkled with errors. I wanted to understand how well ChatGPT handled a different aspect of writing: giving feedback.

My curiosity was piqued by a new study , published in the June 2024 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Learning and Instruction, that evaluated the quality of ChatGPT’s feedback on students’ writing. A team of researchers compared AI with human feedback on 200 history essays written by students in grades 6 through 12 and they determined that human feedback was generally a bit better. Humans had a particular advantage in advising students on something to work on that would be appropriate for where they are in their development as a writer. 

But ChatGPT came close. On a five-point scale that the researchers used to rate feedback quality, with a 5 being the highest quality feedback, ChatGPT averaged a 3.6 compared with a 4.0 average from a team of 16 expert human evaluators. It was a tough challenge. Most of these humans had taught writing for more than 15 years or they had considerable experience in writing instruction. All received three hours of training for this exercise plus extra pay for providing the feedback.

ChatGPT even beat these experts in one aspect; it was slightly better at giving feedback on students’ reasoning, argumentation and use of evidence from source materials – the features that the researchers had wanted the writing evaluators to focus on.

“It was better than I thought it was going to be because I didn’t have a lot of hope that it was going to be that good,” said Steve Graham, a well-regarded expert on writing instruction at Arizona State University, and a member of the study’s research team. “It wasn’t always accurate. But sometimes it was right on the money. And I think we’ll learn how to make it better.”

Average ratings for the quality of ChatGPT and human feedback on 200 student essays

Exactly how ChatGPT is able to give good feedback is something of a black box even to the writing researchers who conducted this study. Artificial intelligence doesn’t comprehend things in the same way that humans do. But somehow, through the neural networks that ChatGPT’s programmers built, it is picking up on patterns from all the writing it has previously digested, and it is able to apply those patterns to a new text. 

The surprising “relatively high quality” of ChatGPT’s feedback is important because it means that the new artificial intelligence of large language models, also known as generative AI, could potentially help students improve their writing. One of the biggest problems in writing instruction in U.S. schools is that teachers assign too little writing, Graham said, often because teachers feel that they don’t have the time to give personalized feedback to each student. That leaves students without sufficient practice to become good writers. In theory, teachers might be willing to assign more writing or insist on revisions for each paper if students (or teachers) could use ChatGPT to provide feedback between drafts. 

Despite the potential, Graham isn’t an enthusiastic cheerleader for AI. “My biggest fear is that it becomes the writer,” he said. He worries that students will not limit their use of ChatGPT to helpful feedback, but ask it to do their thinking, analyzing and writing for them. That’s not good for learning. The research team also worries that writing instruction will suffer if teachers delegate too much feedback to ChatGPT. Seeing students’ incremental progress and common mistakes remain important for deciding what to teach next, the researchers said. For example, seeing loads of run-on sentences in your students’ papers might prompt a lesson on how to break them up. But if you don’t see them, you might not think to teach it. Another common concern among writing instructors is that AI feedback will steer everyone to write in the same homogenized way. A young writer’s unique voice could be flattened out before it even has the chance to develop.

There’s also the risk that students may not be interested in heeding AI feedback. Students often ignore the painstaking feedback that their teachers already give on their essays. Why should we think students will pay attention to feedback if they start getting more of it from a machine? 

Still, Graham and his research colleagues at the University of California, Irvine, are continuing to study how AI could be used effectively and whether it ultimately improves students’ writing. “You can’t ignore it,” said Graham. “We either learn to live with it in useful ways, or we’re going to be very unhappy with it.”

Right now, the researchers are studying how students might converse back-and-forth with ChatGPT like a writing coach in order to understand the feedback and decide which suggestions to use.

Example of feedback from a human and ChatGPT on the same essay

In the current study, the researchers didn’t track whether students understood or employed the feedback, but only sought to measure its quality. Judging the quality of feedback is a rather subjective exercise, just as feedback itself is a bundle of subjective judgment calls. Smart people can disagree on what good writing looks like and how to revise bad writing. 

In this case, the research team came up with its own criteria for what constitutes good feedback on a history essay. They instructed the humans to focus on the student’s reasoning and argumentation, rather than, say, grammar and punctuation.  They also told the human raters to adopt a “glow and grow strategy” for delivering the feedback by first finding something to praise, then identifying a particular area for improvement. 

The human raters provided this kind of feedback on hundreds of history essays from 2021 to 2023, as part of an unrelated study of an initiative to boost writing at school . The researchers randomly grabbed 200 of these essays and fed the raw student writing – without the human feedback – to version 3.5 of ChatGPT and asked it to give feedback , too . 

At first, the AI feedback was terrible, but as the researchers tinkered with the instructions, or the “prompt,” they typed into ChatGPT, the feedback improved. The researchers eventually settled upon this wording: “Pretend you are a secondary school teacher. Provide 2-3 pieces of specific, actionable feedback on each of the following essays…. Use a friendly and encouraging tone.” The researchers also fed the assignment that the students were given, for example, “Why did the Montgomery Bus Boycott succeed?” along with the reading source material that the students were provided. (More details about how the researchers prompted ChatGPT are explained in Appendix C of the study .)

The humans took about 20 to 25 minutes per essay. ChatGPT’s feedback came back instantly. The humans sometimes marked up sentences by, for example, showing a place where the student could have cited a source to buttress an argument. ChatGPT didn’t write any in-line comments and only wrote a note to the student. 

Researchers then read through both sets of feedback – human and machine – for each essay, comparing and rating them. (It was supposed to be a blind comparison test and the feedback raters were not told who authored each one. However, the language and tone of ChatGPT were distinct giveaways, and the in-line comments were a tell of human feedback.)

Humans appeared to have a clear edge with the very strongest and the very weakest writers, the researchers found. They were better at pushing a strong writer a little bit further, for example, by suggesting that the student consider and address a counterargument. ChatGPT struggled to come up with ideas for a student who was already meeting the objectives of a well-argued essay with evidence from the reading source materials. ChatGPT also struggled with the weakest writers. The researchers had to drop two of the essays from the study because they were so short that ChatGPT didn’t have any feedback for the student. The human rater was able to parse out some meaning from a brief, incomplete sentence and offer a suggestion. 

In one student essay about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, reprinted above, the human feedback seemed too generic to me: “Next time, I would love to see some evidence from the sources to help back up your claim.” ChatGPT, by contrast, specifically suggested that the student could have mentioned how much revenue the bus company lost during the boycott – an idea that was mentioned in the student’s essay. ChatGPT also suggested that the student could have mentioned specific actions that the NAACP and other organizations took. But the student had actually mentioned a few of these specific actions in his essay. That part of ChatGPT’s feedback was plainly inaccurate. 

In another student writing example, also reprinted below, the human straightforwardly pointed out that the student had gotten an historical fact wrong. ChatGPT appeared to affirm that the student’s mistaken version of events was correct.

Another example of feedback from a human and ChatGPT on the same essay

So how did ChatGPT’s review of my first draft stack up against my editor’s? One of the researchers on the study team suggested a prompt that I could paste into ChatGPT. After a few back and forth questions with the chatbot about my grade level and intended audience, it initially spit out some generic advice that had little connection to the ideas and words of my story. It seemed more interested in format and presentation, suggesting a summary at the top and subheads to organize the body. One suggestion would have made my piece too long-winded. Its advice to add examples of how AI feedback might be beneficial was something that I had already done. I then asked for specific things to change in my draft, and ChatGPT came back with some great subhead ideas. I plan to use them in my newsletter, which you can see if you sign up for it here . (And if you want to see my prompt and dialogue with ChatGPT, here is the link .) 

My human editor, Barbara, was the clear winner in this round. She tightened up my writing, fixed style errors and helped me brainstorm this ending. Barbara’s job is safe – for now. 

This story about AI feedback   was written by Jill Barshay and produced by  The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for  Proof Points   and other  Hechinger newsletters .

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Arthur Miller — Arthur Miller’s Writing Style: A Comprehensive Analysis

Arthur Miller’s Writing Style: a Comprehensive Analysis

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Back in the day, being woke meant being smart

Professor of Social Work, Michigan State University

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Ronald E. Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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If Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had his way, the word “woke” would be banished from public use and memory.

As he promised in Iowa in December 2023 during his failed presidential campaign, “We will fight the woke in education, we will fight the woke in the corporations, we will fight the woke in the halls of Congress. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.”

DeSantis’ war on “woke ideology” has resulted in the banning of an advanced placement class in African American studies and the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in Florida’s universities and colleges.

Given the origins of the use of the word as a code among Black people, DeSantis has a nearly impossible task, despite his tireless efforts.

For Black people, the modern-day meaning of the word has little to do with school curriculum or political jargon and goes back to the days of Jim Crow and legal, often violent, racial segregation. Back then, the word was used as a warning to be aware of racial injustices in general and Southern white folks in particular.

In my view as a behavioral scientist who studies race , being woke was part of the unwritten vocabulary that Black people established to talk with each other in a way that outsiders could not understand.

The early days of wokeness

It’s unclear when exactly “woke” became a word of Black consciousness. Examples of its use – in various forms of the word “awake” – date back to before the Civil War in Freedom’s Journal , the nation’s first Black-owned newspaper.

In their introductory editorial on April 21, 1827, the editors wrote that their mission was to “plead our own cause.” Part of that mission was offering analysis on the state of educating enslaved Black people who were prohibited from learning how to read and write.

Because education and literacy were “of the highest importance,” the editors wrote, it was “surely time that we should awake from this lethargy of years” during enslavement.

By the turn of the 20th century, the use of versions of the word “woke” by other Black newspaper editors expanded to include the fight for Black voting rights. In a 1904 editorial in the Baltimore Afro-American , for instance, the editors urged Black people to “Wake up, wake up!” and demand full-citizenship rights.

By 1919, Black nationalist Marcus Garvey frequently used a version of the word in his speeches and newspaper, The Negro World , as a clarion call to Black people to become more socially and politically conscious: “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!”

At around the same time, blues singers were using the word to hide protest messages in the language of love songs. On the surface, Willard “Ramblin’” Thomas laments a lost love in “Sawmill Moan”:

If I don’t go crazy, I’m sure gonna lose my mind ‘Cause I can’t sleep for dreamin’, sure can’t stay woke for cryin’

But instead of a love song, some historians have suggested that the lyrics were a veiled protest against the atrocious conditions faced by Black workers in Southern sawmills.

The song given the most credit by historians for the use of the word woke was written and performed in 1938 by Huddie Leadbetter, known as Lead Belly . He advises his listeners to “stay woke” lest they run afoul of white authority.

In an archived interview about the song “Scottsboro Boys,” Lead Belly explained how tough it was at the time for Black people in Alabama.

“It’s a hard world down there in Alabama,” Lead Belly said . “I made this little song about down there. … I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there — best stay woke, keep their eyes open.”

And that’s the message that came out in the song lyrics :

“Go to Alabama and ya better watch out The landlord’ll get ya, gonna jump and shout Scottsboro Scottsboro Scottsboro boys Tell ya what it all about.”

A miscarriage of justice

On March 25, 1931, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, two white women, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates , falsely accused a group of several Black young men of rape.

Based on their words, the nine Black men – ages 12 to 19 years old – were immediately arrested and in less than two weeks, all were tried, convicted, and with one exception, sentenced to death.

All the cases were appealed and eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In its 1932 Powell v. Alabama decision, the court overturned the verdicts in part because prosecutors excluded potential Black jurors from serving during the trial. But instead of freedom, the cases were retried – and each of the “Scottsboro Boys” was found guilty again.

There were four more trials, seven retrials and, in 1935, two landmark Supreme Court decisions – one requiring that defendants be tried by juries of their peers and the other requiring that indigent defendants receive competent counsel .

The nine young men spent a combined total of 130 years in prison. The last was released in 1950. By 2013, all were exonerated .

How woke became a four-letter word

Over the years, the memory of the Scottsboro Boys has remained a part of Black consciousness and of staying woke . During the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. used a version of woke during his commencement address at Oberlin College in 1965.

“The great challenge facing every individual graduating today is to remain awake through this social revolution,” he said .

In recent times, use of the word has ebbed and flowed throughout Black culture but became popular again in 2014 during the protest marches organized by Black Lives Matter in the wake of the shooting death of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Two years later, a documentary on the group was called “ Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement .”

But for GOP lawmakers and conservative talk show pundits , such as DeSantis, “woke” is a pejorative word used to describe those who believe that systemic racism exists in America and remains at the heart of the nation’s racial shortcomings.

When asked to define the term in June 2023, DeSantis explained : “It’s a form of cultural Marxism. It’s about putting merit and achievement behind identity politics, and it’s basically a war on the truth.”

DeSantis couldn’t be more wrong. The truth is that being aware of America’s racist past cannot be dictated by conservative politicians. Civic literacy requires an understanding of the social causes and consequences of human behavior – the very essence of being woke.

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Mexico election 2024 highlights: Claudia Sheinbaum set to become president

Watch live from Mexico City as climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum held an irreversible lead in the race that would make her Mexico’s first woman president, according to an official quick count.

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Today’s live coverage has ended, but there’s still plenty to catch up on. Read what you missed below and find more coverage at apnews.com .

Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum holds an irreversible lead in the 2024 Mexico election that would make her the country’s first female president, according to an official quick count.

▶ Lea lo último en español aquí.

Here’s what to know:

• Results: The National Electoral Institute’s president said Sheinbaum had between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to a statistical sample. Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez had between 26.6% and 28.6% of the vote.
• Who is Claudia Sheinbaum?: The projected winner is the chosen candidate for Morena, the party created by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
• Violence on voting day: A town council candidate was shot to death by two hitmen aboard a motorcycle just hours before the election. In another town, armed men kidnapped one man who was voting in a polling station. Persistent cartel violence is among the top issues for voters.

Supporters of ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum celebrate at the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square, after the National Electoral Institute announced she held an irreversible lead in the election, early Monday, June 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A supporter of ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum awaits her arrival at the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square, after the National Electoral Institute announced Sheinbaum held an irreversible lead in the election, early Monday, June 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Mexico City’s central plaza, the Zocalo, erupted in applause and cheers early Monday morning as Mexico’s projected first woman President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke and pumped her fist before the crowd.

“We women have landed in the presidency,” she said amid a roar from supporters. “We are going to govern for everyone.”

Chants broke out when she referred to her political mentor Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She promised to “preserve his legacy” and continue many of his popular policies, including payments to elderly Mexicans and students.

However, instead of the packed plaza that greeted the current president six years ago, early Monday morning there were only a few thousand supporters – a sign that she still lacked the massive support her mentor enjoys.

Sara Ríos, 76, a retired literature professor at Mexico’s most esteemed university, celebrated the victory among throngs of other supporters, but said Sheinbaum has a long road ahead with many challenges, especially with the country’s ongoing cartel violence.

“She will make an effort to pacify the country and will make progress, but it is a slow process,” she said. “The only way for all of us to progress is by working together.”

Ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum addresses supporters after the National Electoral Institute announced she held an irreversible lead in the election in Mexico City, early Monday, June 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

With both of her competitors conceding, Claudia Sheinbaum’s name is likely to go down in history as the first woman president of Mexico. The one who broke through 200 years of male governments.

Mexico now joins a list of 11 Latin American nations that are or have been governed by women: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

The country, with 129.5 million inhabitants and the second largest economy in Latin America, is known for its “machismo” and violence against women. But Sunday Sheinbaum broke through that longstanding ceiling in an election where the ruling party won by a wide margin.

The projected winner, of the Morena party, will now have to govern a country where disappearances and murders of women are so high, they’re counted with numbers and no longer with names.

Gender equality in the workforce is often divided by class, with women like domestic workers facing harsh conditions. Despite opening access to abortion expanding significantly in recent years, feminist groups in Mexican states are still fighting for better access to sexual and reproductive rights.

Opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez shows her ballot during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

In a speech Monday morning opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez recognized defeat in her campaign for Mexico’s presidency.

She said the results “aren’t in my favor” and said she called the race’s projected winner Claudia Sheinbaum to concede.

Gálvez, highly critical of Sheinbaum and her political mentor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said she would continue to “defend democracy” which she said the populist has put at asked.

Gálvez said she told Sheinbaum: “I see Mexico with a lot of pain and violence.”

• ONGOING VIOLENCE: López Obrador claims to have reduced historically high homicide levels by 20% since he took office in December 2018. But that’s largely a claim based on a questionable reading of statistics. The real homicide rate appears to have declined by only about 4 or 5% in six years by some measures.
• MORE COMPLEX CONFLICT: Under López Obrador cartels have expanded control in much of the country and raked in money — not just from drugs but from extorting legal industries and migrant smuggling. They’ve also fought with more sophisticated tools like bomb-dropping drones and improvised explosive devices.
• “AMLO’S” SHADOW: While Mexico’s next president will likely make history as being the country’s first woman leader, they will likely struggle to step out of the shadow of López Obrador’s larger-than-life image.
• THE ECONOMY: López Obrador brags about Mexico’s strong exchange rate against the U.S. dollar; but the strong peso hurts Mexican exporters, and high domestic interest rates – whcih underpin the currency – tend to choke off economic growth.
• PEMEX: Mexico’s state-owned oil company continues to totter under a mountain of debt, while López Obrador’s pet project _ a new oil refinery – has yet to function, and many of his other infrastructure projects are unfinished, over budget and unlikely to ever turn a profit.
• DEBT: López Obrador also leaves his successor with a staggering budget deficit equivalent to 5.9% of GDP, as well as ongoing costs to fund his building and benefit programs, which will limit their room for manuever.
• WATER AND ENERGY SHORTAGE: López Obrador’s favorite state-owned company, the Federal Electricity Commission, has proved both highly polluting and unreliable, especially in the face of drought and an extended heatwave. The whole country faces looming water and energy shortages.
• THE ENVIRONMENT: Mexico has suffered from long-running drought, wildfires and soaring temperatures causing monkeys to drop dead from trees . Construction of López Obrador’s Maya Train has also fueled environmental concerns .

A supporter of ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum holds a flag that reads in Spanish “we won” after general elections at the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A man dressed in traditional clothing sings after the close of polls during general elections at the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square where supporters of ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum are gathering, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A supporter of ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum waves a Mexican flag after the polls closed during general elections at the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Supporters of ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum wait for her arrival at the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square, after polls closed during general elections on Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Supporters of ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum embrace after the polls closed during general elections at the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum addresses supporters during general elections in Mexico City, early Monday, June 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum greets supporters after the polls closed during general elections in Mexico City, early Monday, June 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

“I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” Claudia Sheinbaum said in her victory speech.

She smiled, speaking at a downtown hotel shortly after electoral authorities announced a statistical sample showed she held an irreversible lead.

“We have demonstrated that Mexico is a democratic country with peaceful elections,” she said.

Ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum greets supporters after the National Electoral Institute announced she held an irreversible lead in the election in Mexico City, early Monday, June 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Projected winner of Mexico’s presidential elections Claudia Sheinbaum gave a victory speech early Monday morning, saying she received calls from her competitors, who conceded the race.

“I want to thanks millions of Mexican men and women who decided to vote for us in this historic journey,” she said in a speech.

She said she received a call from opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez and Jorge Álvarez Máynez congratulating her on the victory.

She said she hopes to work on the “construction of peace” in a violence-torn Mexico and built a “diverse and democratic” Mexico.

FILE - Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, right, and then Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, greet supporters at a rally in Mexico City’s main square, the Zocalo, July 1, 2019. Sheinbaum, Mexico’s ruling party presidential candidate, slipped up during a campaign speech Friday, May 10, 2024, and said López Obrador was motivated by “personal ambition,” but later acknowledged the phrase “could be misinterpreted.” In Mexico it is used to describe a desire for personal economic gain. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that his political mentee will be Mexico’s first woman president.

“Of course I congratulate Claudia Sheinbaum with all my respect who ended up the winner by a wide margin. She is going to be Mexico’s first (woman) president in 200 years,” López Obrador said.

According to projections by Mexico’s electoral agency President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party will hold a congressional majority.

This would allow Claudia Sheinbaum, who the agency has projected will win the race, to push through her agenda with ease.

Ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum shows her ink-stained thumb after voting during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum held an irreversible lead Sunday in the presidential race that would make her Mexico’s first female president, according to an official quick count.

The National Electoral Institute’s president said Sheinbaum had between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to a statistical sample. Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez had between 26.6% and 28.6% of the vote and Jorge Álvarez Máynez had between 9.9% and 10.8% of the vote.

The governing party candidate campaigned on continuing the political course set over the last six years by her political mentor President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

His anointed successor, the 61-year-old Sheinbaum led the campaign wire-to-wire despite a spirited challenge from Gálvez. This was the first time in Mexico that the two main opponents were women.

Ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum arrives to vote during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is leading the presidential race with 30% of polling place tallies counted by Mexico’s electoral authority.

Sheinbaum, candidate of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party, leads with more than 57% of the vote.

Lagging behind her is opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez with nearly 30% of the vote.

Longshot candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez trailed with little more than 10% of the vote.

Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is leading the presidential race with 20% of polling place tallies counted by Mexico’s electoral authority.

Vote counts have been slow, opening the door for competitor Xóchitl Gálvez to sow doubt in election results.

“The votes are there. Don’t let them hide them,” Gálvez wrote on the social platform X shortly before the electoral authorities’ announcement.

Mexico’s electoral agency, the National Electoral Institute, announced that it will give an update on the vote count shortly.

Ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum casts her ballot for president during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is leading the presidential race with 10% of polling place tallies counted by Mexico’s electoral authority. Vote counts have been slow.

The head of Mexico’s electoral agency called on political parties, candidates and the media “to act with restraint, prudence and responsibility” in announcing results after a number of candidates and news organizations called the presidential race based on private exit polls with little official results available.

“Our electoral system is designed to ensure that every vote counts and that every result is verified in a fair and transparent manner,” wrote Guadalupe Taddei Zavala, the president of the electoral institute in a statement.

Vote counts continue to lag in Mexico’s historic election. Despite private exit polls favoring frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum, The Associated Press bases its report on official results and will continue to update coverage as votes roll in.

As night fell, crowds in Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zocalo, still hadn’t formed.

The plaza where frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum plans to celebrate her victory resonated with music piped through speakers rather than the buzz of yet-to-arrive crowds. It was a stark contrast from just six years before when Mexicans flooded into the plaza in the early hours of the night to celebrate the eventual victory of her political mentor, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Throughout the campaign, Sheinbaum failed to generate the same enthusiasm that López Obrador , better known as by his nickname “AMLO,” has long enjoyed.

After polls closed, supporters of Sheinbaum and López Obrador’s party began to arrive in Mexico City’s Zocalo. Some street vendors were promoting Sheinbaum dolls – though those of the populist president appeared to be selling faster.

Fernando Fernández, a 28-year-old chef, and Itxel Robledo, 28, an administrator, opted to buy two pairs of socks with the image of López Obrador while they waited for the results.

“You vote for Claudia out of conviction, for AMLO,” Fernández said. But his highest hope is that Sheinbaum can “improve what AMLO couldn’t do, the price of gasoline, crime and drug trafficking, which he didn’t combat even though he had the power.”

Robledo said that the best of López Obrador was the fight against corruption. “Yes, he achieved it although there is still more to be done and he helped a lot of poor people with his programs in Mexico,” he added.

Robledo, 28, said she supports López Obrador railing against corruption, but hopes that Sheinbaum will put more professionals in her government.

She hopes if Sheinbaum wins, she’ll be able to govern “without the shadow of López Obrador.”

PHOTOS: Voting results are beginning to publish in Mexico’s historic elections

Electoral officials count votes after polls closed during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A voter casts her ballot during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Presidential ballots fill a ballot box, during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Electoral officials and poll watchers count votes after polls closed during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Voters cast their ballots during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Mario Delgado, president of the Morena party, speaks after polls closed in Mexico’s eastern time zone during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Opposition presidential candidate Xochitl Galvez waves after polls closed during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Mexico’s electoral agency is beginning to publish results of the country’s historic elections, in which a woman is likely to be elected as president for the first time.

Mexico City is one of the nine states choosing its governor on Sunday.

The capital has been ruled by leftist governments since 1997, but in 2021 mid-term elections, the president’s party had a setback because important sectors of the capital’s progressive middle class did not agree with López Obrador. He had intensified his criticism of environmentalists, academics, human rights defenders and lashed out against independent institutions that serve as a check on his power.

Yoselin Ramírez, a 29-year-old who voted in a middle class borough, said she split her vote because she didn’t want anyone holding a strong majority. She chose Sheinbaum for president because she thought she was the most qualified.

“I don’t want everything to be occupied with the same party so that there is a little more equality,” she said without elaborating.

López Obrador’s Morena party is also hoping to pick up governorships in opposition strongholds of Guanajuato, Jalisco and Yucatan. Heading into the elections, Morena controlled the governorships in 23 of Mexico’s 32 states.

Engineer Guillermo D. Christy photographs a steel pillar filled with concrete that was installed inside the Aktun Tuyul cave system to support the Maya Train track on the outskirts of Playa del Carmen, Mexico, Sunday, March 3, 2024. Construction of the Maya Train is rapidly destroying part of the hidden underground world of caverns and sinkhole lakes, known as cenotes, already under threat by development and mass tourism. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

As votes are tallied in Mexico’s history elections, catch up on Associated Press coverage in the lead-up to the election:

• In Mexico, a hidden underground world under threat by the Maya Train
• Mexico’s drug cartels and gangs appear to be playing a wider role in Sunday’s elections than before
• Mexico’s poorest receiving less government funds under president who brought poor to the fore
• A woman will likely be Mexico’s next president. But in some Indigenous villages, men hold the power
• A woman could be Mexico’s next leader. Millions of others continue in shadows as domestic workers
• As election nears, violence is key issue for Mexicans, including Catholics jolted by priest killings

Maria del Carmen Ayala Vargas, who said her son Ivan Pasrtana Ayala disappeared in 2021, attends the annual National March of Searching Mothers, held every Mother’s Day in Mexico City, Friday, May 10, 2024. Her sign reads in Spanish, “I’m not looking for those to blame, but for my son.” (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

In some parts of Mexico, voters chose to nullify their votes by writing in the names of some of Mexico’s more than 110,000 missing people as president.

The act was a clear sign of protest by those who were fed up by failures by the government to respond to people who have been forcibly disappeared amid cartel violence.

Among them was Victoria Delgadillo, in Xalapa in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz. She founded the “Xalapa Connections” collective and is looking for her daughter, Yureny Citlali Hernández, who disappeared in 2011 at the age of 26, and 12 other young women. Disappearances often haunt families.

“I voted for Yureny, for Pilar, for Carmen and all those many who have been disappeared,” Delgadillo said.

The “Vote for the Disappeared” campaign, launched nationwide by relatives of those who have gone missing, was not intended to discourage participation. Rather, it was created to make invalid votes have special meaning by registering the name of a disappeared person on a part of the ballots where the voter can write the name of an unregistered candidate.

Such families have criticized the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who they say has sought to minimize the problem of people going missing amid ongoing violence in Mexico.

“Vote for whoever you vote for, we mothers of the disappeared have to work with whoever is left,” Delgadillo said.

Fear gripped the small central Mexican town of Cuitzeo Sunday afternoon, where a town council candidate was shot dead just hours before voting began.

Candidate Israel Delgado Vega was chatting with men near his home when two men on a motorcycle shot him dead, according to local prosecutors. Less than a day later, all that remained at the scene of his death were flowers and candles. Few wanted to speak about his death.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised to reduce violence while in office. He employed a strategy known as “hugs not bullets” focusing on not confronting cartels and instead addressing social ills fueling cartel recruitment, like poverty.

But under the leader, cartels have expanded control in much of the country and raked in money — not just from drugs but from extorting legal industries and migrant smuggling. They’ve also fought with more sophisticated tools like bomb-dropping drones and improvised explosive devices.

Elections have been marked by violence, especially in disputed areas like Guerrero, Chiapas , and Michoacan, where Delgado Vega was slain. It continues to be a top concern by voters.

▶ READ MORE:

• Mexican president claims that criminal groups are ‘respectful’ and ‘respect the citizenry’
• Mexico’s drug war uses drones, human shields, gunships
• Hugs or bullets? Mexico conflicted over how to fight crime

Max Aleman, center, wears a Mexican flag as he waits for hours along with others to vote in the Mexican election at the Mexican Consulate building Sunday, June 2, 2024, in Houston. Houston and Dallas were the only two consulate locations in Texas where Mexican nationals could go to vote. Mexicans went to the polls Sunday to vote for who will likely be the country’s first female president. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Thousands of Mexican voters lined up at their nearest consulate offices. The turnout exceeded Mexico’s expectations in several cities across the United States and other countries.

In Dallas, some voters started waiting in line at 3:30 a.m. local time, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Similar lines could be seen in Houston after hundreds filled sidewalks waiting in the heat with little to no shade for hours.

In Los Angeles, voters draped themselves in Mexican flags and erupted in cheers every time another ballot was cast, the Los Angeles Times reported. Street vendors selling food and snacks also gathered outside the consulate, catering to eager voters.

The Mexican consulates in San Francisco, San Diego and Fresno also saw long lines of hundreds of voters Sunday. California is home to more than three million Mexican immigrants.

“In some cases, such as in Madrid, California, Chicago and Phoenix, the large influx of people wishing to vote at the consular headquarters has exceeded expectations,” Mexico’s National Electoral Institute said in a statement.

Polls have closed in most of Mexico’s 32 states. Voters begin awaiting the results of an election that will chart the way forward in the coming years. Voting will continue for another hour on the Baja California peninsula.

Chinese migrants follow a U.S Border Patrol agent to be processed after crossing the border with Mexico Wednesday, May 8, 2024, near Jacumba Hot Springs, Calif. San Diego became the busiest corridor for illegal crossings in April, according to U.S. figures, the fifth region to hold that title in two years in a sign of how quickly migration routes are changing. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)

While Mexicans were voting, a group of about 200 migrants crossed the Suchiate river that divides Mexico and Guatemala and walked up a highway outside Tapachula.

Venezuelan Eliezer Ávila crossed the Suchiate and quickly joined up with a group of other migrants moving north.

Ávila, a security guard back in Venezuela, said that along the banks of the Suchiate there were hundreds of other migrants who had been waiting for weeks to be attended to by immigration authorities. He said he couldn’t afford to wait around so he set out walking.

We ask “that (authorities) at least set up a humanitarian corridor to a city where we can wait or let us make it to our destination (the United States), he said.

More than 500,000 migrants crossed the Darien Gap dividing Colombia and Panama last year , the majority Venezuelans.

The number of migrants reaching the U.S. border has fallen significantly since January and U.S. officials credit efforts by Mexico. The Biden administration is finalizing plans to clamp down on illegal crossings before the U.S. election.

Mexico has been moving migrants from the north back to the south away from the border. Migrants complain they are constantly extorted by authorities as they move through the country.

TAKE A LOOK: AP photographers capture voting in biggest election in Mexico’s history

Indigenous women line up to vote during general elections in Zinacantan, Mexico, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Etzin)

Voters stand in line as they wait their turn to cast their ballots, during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Cable cars glide over a polling station, right, during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

A child watches as an electoral official dyes her father’s thumb with election ink during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A voter, reflector in a wall mirror, casts her ballots during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A woman casts her ballot in a box for voters who need special assistance, during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Agitated voters hold out their arms to show where electoral workers marked them with a number outside a polling station, during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. Election workers at this downtown polling station created the number system to determine when they reached 1,000, the number of available ballots at that polling station. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Voters line up around the block as they wait to cast their ballots, during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

An Indigenous woman votes during general elections in Zinacantan, Mexico, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Etzin)

Louanne Garcia casts her father’s ballot during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Associated Press journalists across the country have been working to cover the country’s biggest election in history , with more than 20,000 local and federal seats up for grabs.

FILE - A person holds a sign with a message that reads in Spanish: “We are all the same Mexico”, at an opposition rally called to encourage voting in the upcoming election, in the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme, File)

• “ AMLO” : The legacy of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who many see as a champion of Mexico’s marginalized and others see as a threat to democracy. A major question is:
• Violence: Cartels have expanded in power in much of the country in recent years, raking in money from new industries and using more powerful weapons to fight for territory.
• The Economy: Mexico’s peso is the strongest it’s been in years, but many Mexicans complain about inflation, especially in places like Mexico City.
• Gender: With two women leading the ballot, Mexico is on track to elect its first female leader. Both have promised to address violence against women and gender disparities.
• Democracy: López Obrador’s critics say moves he has made represent a democratic threat, something that has fueled massive protests.
• The Environment: Mexico has suffered from long-running drought, wildfires and soaring temperatures causing monkeys to drop dead from trees . Construction of López Obrador’s Maya Train has also fueled environmental concerns .
• Social Spending: AMLO’s social programs are so popular that even the opposition candidates promise to continue them, but spending on Mexico’s poorest has actually fallen

Armed men kidnapped one man who was voting in a polling station in the town of San Fernando, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, according to the Chiapas Prosecutor’s Office.

Two armed men burst into a local market where a voting station was set up and kidnapped the man. The man later appeared beaten up in another place, prosecutors said.

Violence has rapidly escalated in Chiapas in the past year like no other part of Mexico. Cartels and other criminal groups have waged a brutal war for control of the lucrative migrant and drug smuggling routes along the country’s southern border with Guatemala.

• A mayoral candidate and 5 other people killed in gunfire at a campaign rally in southern Mexico
• Mexico’s leading presidential candidate stopped by masked men who ask for help in stemming violence

Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador poses for photos with supporters after voting in the general elections, in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Mexico’s populist leader López Obrador has long been a larger-than-life political force , and continues to be highly popular in Mexico. He has a strong base of support among poorer and rural Mexicans, who identify with his folksy charisma and have long felt forgotten by the country’s political system.

Because of that, his political ally Sheinbaum has used her connection with the leader in her campaign and promised to continue on many of his policies.

At the same time, his critics say his moves to attack the judiciary , slash funding to Mexico’s electoral agency and expand the military’s responsibilities in civilian life have eroded Mexican democracy. Sheinbaum’s competitor Gálvez has capitalized on criticisms of López Obrador throughout her campaign.

Mexico goes into Sunday’s election deeply divided: friends and relatives no longer talk politics for fear of worsening unbridgeable divides, while drug cartels have split the country into a patchwork quilt of warring fiefdoms. (AP video shot by Fernanda Pesce and Megan Janetsky)

FILE - Relatives and friends carry the coffin that contains the remains of a man slain in a mass shooting, into a church for a funeral service in Huitzilac, Mexico, May 14, 2024. When Mexicans vote June 2, they will do so in an increasingly polarized country that continues to struggle with staggering levels of violence. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

Many Mexican voters say violence is top among their electoral worries, but it’s also spurred democratic concerns.

Cartels and other criminal groups use elections – particularly local elections – as an opportunity to make power grabs. The National Electoral Institute says it has had to cancel plans for 170 polling places, mostly in Chiapas and Michoacan and mostly because of security problems.

While voting appeared peaceful, if time-consuming, at most of Mexico’s approximately 170,000 polling places, there were isolated incidents of violence Sunday after a bloody campaign process.

In the central state of Puebla, four armed assailants tried to burst in to a school where voting booths were installed to steal ballots. State police said arrests had been made.

And Queretaro’s governor, said that assailants had tried to burn ballots at four polling places. A video posted on social media showed two masked men escaping on a motorcycle after one attack.

Earlier this week, unidentified gunmen opened fire a couple of blocks away from a mayoral candidate’s final campaign rally in western Cotija, Michoacan.

Meanwhile, candidates have been picked off, with at least 28 political contenders slain this year, according to human rights organization Data Civica.

• Mexico’s cartel violence haunts civilians as the June 2 election approaches
• Violence clouds the last day of campaigning for Mexico’s election

A voter uses a fallen palm leaf to protect himself from the sun while he waits to vote in the general election, in Xalapa, Veracruz, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Alba Aleman)

The elections in Mexico are heating up – and not just politically.

In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, temperatures were already at 100 degrees (37 Celsius) before noon and were expected to rise further. Voters were covering their heads with stalks of leaves and palm fronds as they stood in line. So far this year, 14 people have died in the state from heat stroke, and howler monkeys have fallen dead from the trees.

In the Veracruz hamlet of Mandinga, two voters, Antonio Castillo, 43 and Esteban Ramirez, 45, took refuge in the little shade provided by an improvised cover of palm fronds.

Because of poor organization, some voters in Veracruz faced lines up to three hours to vote. Castillo and Ramirez, both taxi drivers, were uncomplaining. “The important thing here is to vote. We found these palm fronds here and they’re helping us,” Castillo said, “though we’d really like to have a real palapa.”

Even in the relatively temperate capital, Mexico City , about 7,350 feet (2,240 meters) above sea level, Hugo Nava, a 71-year-old university professor, said the heat was the worst he remembers in at least 30 years.

“I used to carry a sports coat or sweater around. No more,” says Nava, who showed up in shirt sleeves to wait in line to vote. “It’s bad.”

“ The climate is having a big effect ,” he said. “People are coming out early, because they don’t want to be here at noon.”

Presidential candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez arrives to vote in the general election in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Jorge Álvarez Máynez is a longshot candidate in Mexico’s presidential race. He’s offered himself up as an alternative to those not content with the polarized candidates locked in a tug-of-war for Mexico’s top position.

While he’s sought to court the youth vote, he’s also become the subject of many internet memes throughout the race. A former federal lawmaker, he represents the smaller Citizen Movement party.

PHOTOS: AP photograhers capture Mexicans voting in historic elections

Ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum shows her ballot before voting, during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum leaves the polling station where she voted during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Voters, some holding a sign supporting opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, line up outside a polling station during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez shows her inked-stained thumb as she leaves a polling station after voting in the general election, in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

An electoral officer assists a voter with her presidential ballot during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

La Catedral está iluminada mientras amanece antes de la apertura de las urnas para las elecciones generales en la Ciudad de México, el domingo 2 de junio de 2024. (AP Foto/Matías Delacroix)

La candidata presidencial del partido gobernante, Claudia Sheinbaum, habla con periodistas después de votar en las elecciones generales en la Ciudad de México, el domingo 2 de junio de 2024. (AP Foto/Matías Delacroix)

Ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum leaves the polling station where she voted during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Presidential candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez shows his ink-stained thumb after voting in general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Mexico’s National Electoral Institute reports that as of 11 a.m. – three hours after polls were to open -- only about 82% of voting places had successfully opened.

The reasons stemmed from violence-plagued areas where it was unsafe to have to people vote to local conflicts among residents and poll workers who didn’t show up.

It was especially difficult in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state, which has been torn by growing cartel violence over the past year.

Electoral authorities there said that they only managed to open 58% of polling places.

They said in many cases they were unable to open on time because there were not sufficient poll workers. In some cases they had to recruit voters from the lines.

Violence was behind some of the reticence. Local candidates have been killed in some Chiapas communities in recent days.

In Tamaulipas, at Mexico’s northern border with Texas, Magdalena Ruiz, 69, was frustrated by voting problems in the state capital Ciudad Victoria.

Ruiz had roused her grandson from bed early Sunday so that he could vote for the first time – he was not enthusiastic. But she convinced him it was his duty and got him to the polling place.

But it only got worse when they got there. Locals were fighting over the opening of the polling place and it was 11 a.m. before authorities were able to establish order and start the voting.

“I feel sad,” Ruiz said. “I hope my grandson doesn’t come away with a bad experience.”

Senator Xóchitl Gálvez is the opposition candidate in Mexico’s presidential elections.

She sold snacks in a small town in central Mexico as a girl to help her family and rose to national politics with a biography that could help take her to the heights of power. She speaks more candidly – similar to López Obrador – than her competitor and her story of humble origins helped her make a splash when she entered the race.

Gálvez is a fierce critic of the outgoing president, and doesn’t shy away from verbal sparring. She represents a coalition of parties that have had little historically to unite them other than their recent opposition to López Obrador.

But Gálvez hasn’t been able to ignite as much fervor as her supporters hoped,and she has trailed the ruling party’s candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum in polls.

A woman holds up a sign with a message that reads in Spanish; “I will decide” as she joins a march demanding legal, free and safe abortions for all women, marking International Safe Abortion Day, in Mexico City, Sept. 28, 2022. Mexico’s Supreme Court on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023, has decriminalized abortion nationwide. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

Electing a female president would be a huge step in a country with soaring levels of gender-based violence and deep gender disparities .

Mexico still has a famously intense “machismo”, or culture of male chauvinism, that has created large economic and social disparities in society. In its most extreme form, the misogyny is expressed in high rates of femicides , and things like acid attacks against women .

Both frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum and opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez have promised to address high rates of gender-based violence and gender disparities if they win.

A historic number of women in the socially conservative country are taking up leadership and political roles.

That’s in part due to a decades-long push by authorities for greater representation in politics, including laws that require political parties to have half of their congressional candidates be women. Since 2018, Mexico’s Congress has had a 50-50 gender split, and the number of female governors has shot up.

Waiting to vote in her first election, 20-year-old Evelyn Elizondo Valdez of Xalapa, Veracruz, was pleased to have two women to choose from on the ballot.

“It has cost women a lot to get into public positions,” Elizondo said. “And even though they deny it, Claudia (Sheinbaum) is still an extension of (President Andrés Manuel López Obrador), a man. That’s why I think it (should be) Xóchitl (Gálvez).”

In Mexico City, Guillermina Romero, 59, hugged Sheinbaum when she came to vote.

Romero said her husband came from a sexist family and her mother was abused by her father. But she’s seen the change that Mexico has undergone over time. As she stood next to her daughter, also voting, she said it gives her hope.

Having a woman president “means that Mexico has changed, that they’re taking us into account,” she said.

• A woman might win the presidency of Mexico. What could that mean for abortion rights?
• Sexist tropes and misinformation swirl online as Mexico prepares to elect its first female leader

Claudia Sheinbaum has been the clear frontrunner of Mexico’s presidential elections in her bid to replace outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She is the chosen candidate for Morena, the party he created.

Despite running Mexico City, one of the biggest cities in the Western Hemisphere, Sheinbaum has struggled to construct her own image. While she has pitched herself as being a continuation of her political ally, she has a more reserved character and may turn out to be more progressive than López Obrador.

She has had to walk a fine line in her campaign – embracing López Obrador’s support, while not critiquing him on less popular fronts, like his security policy .

The campaign left many wondering whether she can escape the shadow of the larger-than-life incumbent.

• Mixed feelings in Mexico as two women vie for country’s presidency
• Mexico’s likely next president is a scientist. Politics has her mostly quiet on climate threats

A relatively new trend is emerging in Mexican elections: bringing your dog to the voting booth.

At one polling place in central Mexico City, nearly a dozen dogs - ranging in size from Great Danes to pugs - were waiting patiently with their owners in lines that stretched around the block.

Koba, a tawny colored Husky, accompanied his owner, Marco Delaye, into the polling place, and the two emerged smiling. “He behaved very well,” said Delaye. “He let me vote without any problem.”

That was no small feat, given that turnout was very high early Sunday and polling places were jam-packed _ perhaps because Mexicans are lining up to vote early to avoid the country’s unprecedented heat wave.

Clara Brugada, a candidate for Mexico City mayor for the governing Morena party, took her pup to vote too.

Historic levels of migration have been at the core of upcoming elections in the United States, but it’s been largely left out of the electoral debate in Mexico.

The different ways migration is resonating in the two countries’ elections this year reflects the neighbors’ very different styles of democracy and attitudes on the issue.

Just about every Mexican family has an immediate experience with migration, so much of the conversation has centered about migrant protections. Mexico also still remains largely a sending and transit country, though more migrants are putting down roots here as the U.S. becomes more difficult to enter.

Donald Trump moved anti-immigration sentiment to center stage in U.S. politics seeing it as a winning issue for himself and Republicans.

No Mexican presidential candidate has tried to make immigration an issue beyond pledging to defend Mexicans already in the U.S.

At the same time, Mexico’s next president will likely have to work with whoever wins upcoming elections in the United States on cross-border issues.

At Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, security and immigration are top of mind for some voters.

“One of the main (concerns) is the out of control immigration that some authorities have not been able to resolve efficiently,” said teacher Daniel Martínez in Tapachula.

The 69-year-old said he still planned for governing party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum because he considers her to have a lot of experience as the former mayor of Mexico’s largest city.

Claudia Muñoz said the gender of the candidates shouldn’t be a deciding factor in casting your vote, but rather their ability to deal with Mexico’s security problems.

She called for a far greater security presence along Mexico’s porous southern border, as well as more security across the country and a bolstering of the economy.

Two of Mexico’s most powerful cartels have been battling for control of smuggling routes along the southern border, displacing residents and spreading fear.

Amid a sea of press and applauding supporters, presidential frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum strolled into her small voting site on Mexico City’s south side, waving and hugging men in cowboy hats as women snapped photos.

“Presidenta! Presidenta!” supporters chanted as neighbors stood on their roofs to take photos.

Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez took selfies with supporters as she waited to vote in the central Mexico City Reforma Social neighborhood.

“Hang in there,” she said. “It is going to be a hard, difficult, contested day, it is not just a formality,” she said.

“There is a great turnout and I said it from the beginning: if people participate Mexico wins.”

Walking amid shouts of “You are not alone Xóchitl” and “We are going to win”, she said she was not nervous. “God is with me.”

Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizen Movement party waded through press with his team trying to avoid trampling other voters waiting their turn to vote.

As she left home to vote, frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters briefly that she was “very happy, very excited” on what she described as a “historic day.”

She said that she had a “quiet” night and that after voting she would come back home to have breakfast.

She called on people to go to the polls. “You have to vote, you have to go out and vote,” the former Mexico City mayor said as she left in a car.

Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and first lady Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller arrive to vote during general elections in Mexico City, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador walked out of the National Palace and into a nearby voting location to cast his ballot.

The 70-year-old leader wearing a blue suit ducked into a voting booth to mark his ballot.

López Obrador oversaw a months-long internal campaign in his Morena party to select his successor. Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum emerged victorious in internal polling and received López Obrador’s seal of approval.

She ran a conservative campaign essentially promising to continue her mentor’s policies.

Voters of the Latin American country of 130 million people have started casting their ballots. Voters began lining up before dawn for the historic election.

The election – and Mexican politics in recent years – have been deeply divisive, reflecting polarized Mexican society.

Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is a clear frontrunner in the race, and is seen as a continuation candidate of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Morena party.

Others have turned to opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez , who has focused her ire on López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” policy of not confronting the drug cartels.

Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the smaller Citizen Movement party has targeted the youth vote, but has trailed the two women.

At a special voting post on a large Mexico City medical campus where people like on-duty doctors and nurses who can’t get home to vote can cast their ballots, men and women are waiting for polls to open.

Aida Fabiola Valencia said, “yesterday I told my colleagues to go vote, I don’t know who they are going to vote for but it is the first time they are going to be able to elect a woman, who I think is going to play an important role, we (women) are 60% of the population, it is historic.”

There have been female candidates before in Mexico, but this is the first time the two leading candidates — Claudia Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Gálvez — are women.

FILE - This combo image shows opposition presidential candidate Xochitl Galvez, left, on July 4, 2023, and presidential frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum, on May 29, 2024, both in Mexico City. Voters choosing Mexico’s next president will decide on Sunday, June 2, 2024, between Sheinbaum, a former mayor and academic, and Galvez, an ex-senator and tech entrepreneur. A third candidate from a smaller party trails far behind. (AP Photo/File)

Nearby, Mónica Martínez, said “The fact that people vote for a candidate who is a woman implies a lot of change at all social and work levels, that means that it is already starting to get better. It already is. But the fact that it is for a presidential candidacy is much more significant.”

On the fringes of Mexico City in the neighborhood of San Andres Totoltepec, electoral officials filed past 34-year-old homemaker Stephania Navarrete, who watched dozens of cameramen and electoral officials gathering where frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum was set to vote.

Navarrete said she planned to vote for Sheinbaum despite her own doubts about outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his party.

“Having a woman president, for me as a Mexican woman, it’s going to be like before when for the simple fact that you say you are a woman you’re limited to certain professions. Not anymore.”

She said the social programs of Sheinbaum’s mentor were crucial, but that deterioration of cartel violence in the past few years was her primary concern in this election.

“That is something that they have to focus more on,” she said. “For me security is the major challenge. They said they were going to lower the levels of crime, but no, it was the opposite, they shot up. Obviously, I don’t completely blame the president, but it is in a certain way his responsibility.”

Mexicans are voting Sunday in historic elections weighing gender , democracy and populism , as they chart the country’s path forward in voting shadowed by cartel violence .

The race is historic . With two women leading the contest, Mexico will likely elect its first female president. The elections are also the country’s biggest , with more than 19,000 congressional and local positions up for grabs.

The Associated Press’ reporting team on the ground will be providing updates throughout the day.