Australian History - Role of Women during WW2 Source Usefulness worksheet

Help your middle and high school students sharpen their historical thinking skills with this no-prep source usefulness activity focused on the role of women during World War II. This engaging resource includes a teacher-guided slide deck, a digital + printable student worksheet, and structured scaffolding to support source analysis skills in your History classroom.

Students will explore two contrasting primary sources—a wartime photograph and a letter to the editor—to evaluate their usefulness in studying how Australian women contributed to the war effort and how society perceived their roles at the time.

Product Purpose and Benefits:

• Teaches students how to assess source usefulness by examining content and provenance
• Builds critical analysis skills through engaging source-based inquiry
• Highlights the changing roles and perceptions of Australian women during WWII
• Supports classroom discussion and independent analysis tasks
• Fully digital and printable format for flexible classroom use
  

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.