what exactly is it? i know you’re supposed to extend the argument to something outside the documents or prompt, but what distinguishes it from the point for contextualization or evidence beyond the documents?
If it’s outside of the time period. So like say your documents is on women’s roles in the 1900s, you can say how women were apart of the home and fit the “republican motherhood” during the American Revolution. It’s the same idea how they had certain roles in this time but with a different time period. This is easily done with the different recessions throughout history because they are so common. My teacher although advises not to talk about stuff past 9/11 because you can easily become political (leaning towards one side), or you can come off that way even if you didn’t intend to. You can also do this with the same time period but different place, like outside of our country. I find this easier when your talking about like immigration and what caused the people to leave. Like the first wave of immigrants is due to the potato famine. Or you can talk about another place during the world wars or any of the wars that were fought outside of the country in the 1900s. But if you do it in a different place make sure you use specifics and make connections.
I personally find it a lot easier to connect your essay topic to a different time period in US history than a different place. Hopefully I specified what you needed and the examples helped. 