Students are often having trouble with CONTEXTUALIZATION.
Contextualization is the ability to connect historical developments to specific circumstances in time & place, & to broader regional, national or global processes.
This includes: Moods, attitudes, & conditions that existed in a certain time.
Context is the "setting" for an event that occurs, & it impacts the relevance of the event.
In the example below it shows the US Weekly Initial Jobless Claims by the thousands, seasonally adjusted (which is for example, agriculture jobs may shift during the winter because it is not harvest season and fields lie dormant). You could put them in historical context by simply stating how much of a spike in claims there is compared to any time since the 1960s.
The Labor Department reported on Thursday that around nine million people had filed for unemployment insurance over the past two weeks. (That number is not seasonally adjusted.) By contrast, in a healthy economy, fewer than half a million people would have done so. This suggests there are around 8.5 million more people on unemployment benefits today than there were two weeks ago.
In addition, independent contractors, including many gig economy workers, most likely lost their jobs but did not qualify for benefits. (The recent fiscal package passed by Congress will change this in coming weeks.) It is hard to be precise about how many people fall into this category, but a round, conservative guess might raise my estimate of the number of job losers to 10 million from 8.5 million.Those statements in red font really speak to CONTEXT. And in this case, the author, Wolfers, is trying to make the case that the numbers are grim, but they are probably MUCH worse. That is context!
Plus, the system has been so overwhelmed that many have not been able to connect online and do their claims. Some fall into a category of workers who must visit an office in person, which is impossible since they are closed at this time due to the healthcare crisis.
So all in all, putting anything in context is not a simple sentence. You will need to write, explain and be sure to do ONE THING FOR CERTAIN: Explain how your contextualized information helps to further your thesis and your claim. If it does not speak to answering the prompt, the AP Readers (ie, those scoring your tests) will NOT give you credit for that point.
