Australian History - WW2 Japanese Attack on Darwin Source Usefulness worksheet

Help your middle and high school students deepen their historical thinking with this no-prep digital and printable resource, designed to extend and consolidate their understanding of source usefulness in History. Perfect as a follow-up or extension to a previous source analysis lesson, this task set includes a digital student worksheet pack and a scaffolded slide deck to support student-led inquiry and independent work.

This resource builds on key skills from the Source Usefulness framework, encouraging students to evaluate and compare multiple sources, identify differences in content and provenance, and consider reliability and limitations through short, focused tasks.

Product Purpose and Benefits

✅ Encourages deeper engagement with multiple historical sources

✅ Develops critical thinking and evidence-based writing

✅ Reinforces key concepts: content, provenance, reliability, bias

✅ Ideal for group work, revision, early finisher tasks or homework

✅ Requires no additional prep—print or assign digitally

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.