History teachers building document-based question units on the civil rights era or the Jim Crow South often look for a primary source that offers a specific, personal, and well-documented account of daily discrimination, and excerpts from "Black Like Me" fit this need particularly well because Griffin wrote in real time, recording dates, locations, and specific incidents as they occurred. Using the memoir as one document among several in a DBQ set gives students a first-person perspective that complements the legal documents, speeches, or statistical sources that typically anchor these units. Because AP History exams and many state-level assessments now emphasize DBQ style writing, giving students practice analyzing this kind of source within a structured document set builds a transferable skill rather than treating the memoir purely as a literature assignment.

When selecting a specific excerpt for a DBQ document set, teachers should choose a passage that includes enough concrete, specific detail, names of towns, descriptions of specific businesses or bus lines, to support the kind of sourcing analysis DBQ writing requires, rather than a more general or reflective passage. A well-chosen excerpt allows students to practice identifying the source's point of view, purpose, and audience, all standard DBQ sourcing categories, since Griffin's specific position as a white journalist temporarily altering his appearance creates genuinely interesting complications for each of these categories. Students analyzing this source must grapple with questions about how Griffin's unusual position affects the reliability and limitations of his account, which is exactly the kind of critical source evaluation DBQ writing is meant to assess.

Pairing the Griffin excerpt with a contrasting document, such as a first-person account from a Black writer who did not have the option of returning to a white identity at the end of the experience, gives students material for a genuinely rich corroboration and contradiction analysis. This pairing highlights both what the sources share, detailed observation of similar discriminatory practices, and what distinguishes them, the difference between a temporary, voluntary experience and a permanent, involuntary one. Teachers should explicitly ask students to address this distinction in their DBQ essay, since it is exactly the kind of source-limitation analysis that separates strong DBQ responses from responses that simply summarize each document in turn.

Applying Standard DBQ Sourcing Categories to This Text

Most DBQ rubrics, whether from AP History courses or state-level history assessments, reward students for addressing at least one of the HIPP categories, historical context, intended audience, purpose, or point of view, for a meaningful number of the documents they cite. Griffin's memoir offers unusually rich material for the point of view category specifically, since his position as a white author temporarily altering his appearance is a point of view complication that students can analyze in real depth rather than gesturing at superficially. Teachers should model, using this specific document, what a strong point-of-view analysis looks like, showing students how to explain not just who Griffin was but how that specific identity shaped what he was able to observe and how contemporary readers likely responded to his account.

• Identify Griffin's specific point of view and explain how it shapes what he is able to observe
• Explain the likely purpose behind Griffin's decision to publish this account for a 1959 audience
• Compare this document to a source from a writer without the option to return to a prior identity
• Evaluate what historical context is needed to fully understand a specific passage's significance
• Assess one clear limitation of this source for understanding the broader lived experience of segregation

Grading DBQ Essays That Include This Document

When grading a DBQ essay that incorporates the Griffin excerpt alongside other documents, teachers should watch specifically for whether students use the source as more than just supporting evidence for a general claim about discrimination, since the richest essays will engage with the source's specific limitations and complications rather than treating it as interchangeable with the other documents in the set. An essay that simply lists "Document C shows that discrimination existed" has not engaged with the source at the level DBQ rubrics typically require, while an essay that explains how Griffin's specific position shapes both the value and the limits of his testimony demonstrates the kind of sourcing sophistication that earns full credit on most DBQ scoring guides. This distinction should be reinforced through explicit instruction before students encounter the document in a timed writing context.

Teachers should also grade for whether students successfully synthesize this document with the others in the set rather than addressing each source in an isolated paragraph, since strong DBQ writing weaves documents together around a central argument rather than marching through them one at a time. A student who uses the Griffin excerpt alongside a contrasting first-person account to build a single argument about the varied forms discrimination took across different circumstances has demonstrated genuine synthesis, which is typically the highest-scoring skill on most DBQ rubrics. This kind of cross-document synthesis is difficult for students to master and benefits from repeated, low-stakes practice throughout the school year rather than being introduced for the first time on a high-stakes exam.

Building Toward Exam-Level Timed Writing

Because DBQ essays on exams like the AP US History exam are written under significant time pressure, teachers should give students practice with this specific document under timed conditions before the actual exam, so that source complexity like Griffin's unusual point of view does not slow students down when it matters most. A useful practice structure has students spend a set number of minutes annotating just the Griffin excerpt for HIPP analysis before moving on to a full timed DBQ response using a complete document set. This isolated practice builds the specific skill of quickly identifying a complicating point of view, which then transfers to whatever unfamiliar documents appear on the actual exam.

History departments that build a shared document bank for DBQ practice benefit from including well-annotated excerpts like this one, along with sample high-scoring and low-scoring student responses, so that teachers across different sections and different years can maintain consistent expectations for what strong sourcing analysis looks like. Grading tools that can check for the presence of specific analytical moves, such as an explicit point-of-view discussion tied to a cited document, help teachers apply DBQ rubrics consistently across large numbers of practice essays throughout the year, not just on the final graded exam. This consistency in practice grading builds the habits students need well before the stakes are highest.