Australian History - WW2 Japanese Attack on Sydney Harbour Source Usefulness

Help your middle and high school history students strengthen their historical thinking and critical analysis skills with this no-prep printable and digital source usefulness worksheet activity focused on the Japanese midget submarine raid on Sydney Harbour during WWII. With a structured slide deck, student-friendly scaffolding, and editable worksheets, this resource is perfect for developing key source analysis skills.

This resource explores how historians use sources to understand historical events, with a specific focus on content and provenance. Students will examine two powerful archival photographs related to the 1942 attack, evaluate each source’s usefulness, and construct supported written responses based on source utility frameworks.

Product Purpose and Benefits

✔️ Teaches students how to evaluate a source’s usefulness using content and provenance

✔️ Promotes critical thinking and source-based inquiry

✔️ Encourages structured written responses using clear sentence starters

✔️ Provides opportunities for class discussion and independent analysis

✔️ Built for middle and high school Australian History & World War II units

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.