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Essential History Skills Worksheet
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Essential History Skills Worksheet
📚 Part 1: Understanding Historical Sources
1. What is a primary source?
A textbook written about an event 50 years later
A diary entry written by someone who lived through the event
A documentary film made about the event
A Wikipedia article about the event
2. Which of these would be considered reliable sources for researching New Zealand history? (Select all that apply)
Government records from Archives New Zealand
Oral histories from Māori elders
Anonymous blog posts
Newspaper articles from the time period
Academic books by qualified historians
3. When evaluating a historical source, historians ask key questions. Match each question to its purpose:
Who created this source?
When was it created?
Why was it created?
What perspective does it show?
Understanding bias and viewpoint
Establishing context and relevance
Determining credibility and expertise
Identifying purpose and reliability
✏️ Part 2: Interpreting Historical Evidence
4. You find a letter written by a European settler in 1840 describing Māori as "savage and uncivilised". How would you interpret this source?
5. Fill in the blanks: When historians have different interpretations of the same event, this is called a historical ____________. This happens because historians may use different ____________ or have different ____________.
6. List three questions you should ask when evaluating whether a historical source is reliable:
🔍 Part 3: Applying History Skills
7. You are researching the 1981 Springbok Tour protests in New Zealand. Which combination of sources would give you the most balanced understanding?
Only newspaper articles supporting the protests
Police reports, protester interviews, and newspaper coverage from different viewpoints
Only government documents
Social media posts from 2020 about the events
8. Explain why historians need to use multiple sources when researching a historical event. Give a specific example.
9. Choose a historical event you have studied. Describe one way that different groups of people might remember or interpret this event differently, and explain why.
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