Australian History, Great Depression Government response Source Usefulness

Help your middle and high school students strengthen their historical thinking and critical analysis skills with this no-prep Paris Peace Conference source usefulness activity. With a teacher-led slide deck, student worksheet (print + digital), and structured analysis prompts, this resource is perfect for World War I or Treaty of Versailles lessons.

This activity explores how useful historical sources are for understanding the goals, perspectives, and impacts of the Paris Peace Conference, encouraging students to evaluate content and provenance through a scaffolded framework.

Product Purpose and Benefits

This resource helps students:

• Develop skills in evaluating content and provenance
• Understand political motives, power dynamics, and global consequences of the Treaty of Versailles
• Build confidence in writing source-based responses
• Engage critically with historical interpretation and reliability
  

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.