Australian Civil Rights History - Freedom Ride 1965 Source Usefulness

Help your middle and high school students strengthen their historical thinking and critical analysis skills with this no-prep source usefulness worksheet activity focused on the 1965 Freedom Ride and its impact on civil rights in Australia. This digital and printable resource includes a teacher-guided slide deck and editable student tasks designed to explore how different types of sources offer insight into historical events.

This activity centres on two contrasting sources—a newspaper article and a photograph—related to the Freedom Ride through New South Wales. Students examine content and provenance, then evaluate each source’s usefulness in understanding the Aboriginal civil rights movement.

Product Purpose and Benefits:

This resource helps students:

• Practice evaluating primary sources for usefulness
• Understand the role of bias, perspective, and purpose
• Develop source analysis and reasoning for historical inquiry
• Gain insight into the impact of the Freedom Ride and media responses
  

What’s Included in This Resource:

1. Editable Slide Deck – “Understanding Source Usefulness”

The lesson begins with a teacher-guided slide deck that introduces key concepts of source usefulness, including content and provenance, bias, perspective, and purpose, with sample questions, sentence starters, and modelled examples to support discussion and explicit teaching of historical thinking skills.

2. Source Evaluation Worksheet

After the slide deck, students apply their learning to a structured, scaffolded worksheet focused on two real sources.

Students are guided to:

• Evaluate each source’s content (what is being said/shown)
• Analyse the provenance (who, when, where, why)
• Make informed judgments about usefulness for understanding the event
• Use evidence to support their evaluation in a clear, written format

3. Source Usefulness Activity

Worksheet designed to deepen understanding.

This task encourages students to:

• Examine the surface and subtext of both sources
• Explore tone, language, and visual cues

• • Build confidence in engaging with unfamiliar source types

Learn more about this product’s features, care instructions, and other useful details to help you make an informed choice.

Learn more about this product’s features, care instructions, and other useful details to help you make an informed choice.