South African History - ANC resistance to Apartheid Source Usefulness worksheet

Help your middle and high school students strengthen their historical thinking and critical analysis skills with this no-prep source usefulness worksheet activity focused on ANC resistance during South Africa’s Apartheid era. With a guided slide deck, editable student tasks, and built-in scaffolding, this resource is ideal for History and Civics classrooms.

This printable and digital resource supports explicit instruction in evaluating sources by exploring Nelson Mandela’s act of defiance and the structured resistance led by the African National Congress during the 1950s.

Product Purpose and Benefits

✔️ Develops students’ understanding of historical context and resistance movements

✔️ Teaches how to assess a source’s content and provenance

✔️ Builds analysis skills using guided questions, sentence starters, and structured tasks

✔️ Perfect for teaching source utility as part of a broader Apartheid unit

✔️ Includes visual primary and secondary sources for analysis

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.