Australian History - Great Depression public opinion Source Usefulness, slides

Engage your middle and high school history students with this no-prep, printable and digital worksheet activity and slide deck focused on evaluating source usefulness in the context of Australian public opinion during the Great Depression.

This critical thinking and historical analysis resource is designed to develop students’ understanding of how to evaluate the usefulness of primary and secondary sources for a specific inquiry. Using a rich pair of historical documents—including a settler’s letter and a public editorial—students explore perspectives, values, and experiences from Depression-era Australia.

This resource is ideal for Australian History, Civics & Citizenship, and modern history classes exploring the causes and consequences of the Great Depression in Australia.

Product Purpose and Benefits

This resource helps students:

• Evaluate historical sources using content and provenance.
• Understand public experiences during the Great Depression.
• Build critical thinking and literacy through scaffolded analysis.
• Gain confidence writing inquiry-based 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