Australian Civil Rights History - Mabo decision Source Usefulness

Empower your middle and high school history students with this no-prep, printable and digital source usefulness activity focused on the landmark Mabo Judgement and its impact on Indigenous land rights in Australia. This resource supports explicit historical thinking instruction using primary sources, guided analysis, and scaffolded tasks aligned to curriculum standards.

Perfect for Australian History, Civics, and Legal Studies classrooms, this source analysis activity helps students develop critical thinking and inquiry skills by exploring how to evaluate a source’s usefulness based on content and provenance.

Product Purpose and Benefits

This resource helps students:

• Understand the historical significance of the Mabo case and Native Title
• Examine and compare primary and secondary sources for usefulnes
• Practice evaluating author, origin, context, and perspective
• Strengthen their source analysis and writing skills

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.