7th grade · Free
How to Read a DBQ
Teach every skill students need before their first DBQ, then let them try those skills on a short Viking Age mini-DBQ. This free lesson launches…
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Grades 6–8 · Made in Kentucky, for Kentucky
Don’t memorize history. Investigate it.
Full curriculum resources & inquiry-based DBQs
Real sources, real questions and full and scaffolded versions so every student can join in. All in editable Google Slides.
★ Kentucky standards★ Primary sources★ Editable Google Slides★ Answer keys★ Instant delivery
Featured series · 7th grade
Inquiry DBQ Series: World Civilizations 600–1600
Each DBQ asks one big question, gives students real documents to weigh and ends with an evidence-based argument. Every DBQ uses the same sourcing steps, evidence buckets and 4-point rubric, so students get faster with each one.
Start with the free bootcamp →★
- 1Geography of Great CitiesConstantinople, Baghdad & Tenochtitlan
- 2Order or Justice?Justinian's Code, Islamic law & Magna Carta
- 3The CrusadesWho gained the most? Urban II, Saladin & Venice
- 4Mansa Musa's MaliTrans-Saharan gold-salt trade
- 5The Silk RoadsGoods or ideas? Trade, Buddhism & papermaking
- 6The Black DeathHow trade turned a disease into a disaster
- 7The MongolsDestroyers or connectors? Pax Mongolica
- 8China's Civil Service ExamsWas the system fair? Confucius & merit
- 9TenochtitlanHow the Aztecs built a city on a lake
- 10The IncaRunning an empire without writing · coming soon
- 11The Printing PressGutenberg, the Reformation & movable type · coming soon
- 12Galileo on TrialScientific Revolution: science vs. authority · coming soon
- 13Conquest of the Aztec EmpireCortés, allies & smallpox · coming soon
- 14The Columbian ExchangeWho won and who lost? · coming soon
- 15The Valladolid DebateLas Casas vs. Sepúlveda · coming soon
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7th grade · DBQ #1
Geography of Great Cities
Constantinople, Baghdad and Tenochtitlan. Full and scaffolded versions plus a teacher presentation, in Google Slides.
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7th grade · DBQ #2
Order or Justice?
Trial by boiling water, a qadi's court, or a written law? Students compare medieval law codes to judge how well each created order, delivered…
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7th grade · DBQ #3
The Crusades
Knights, merchants, emperors, and sultans all had something to win in the Crusades. Students weigh Christian, Byzantine, and Muslim sources, a…
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7th grade · DBQ #4
Mansa Musa's Mali
What made Mali so rich and powerful? Students weigh Al-Umari, Ibn Battuta, the Catalan Atlas, and trade maps to explain the wealth behind Mansa…
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7th grade · DBQ #5
The Silk Roads
Silk, spices, and paper, or Buddhism and new technology? Students label each piece of evidence as goods or ideas, then argue what mattered more on…
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7th grade · DBQ #6
The Black Death
How did trade turn a disease into a disaster? Students read survivors' accounts, trace the plague on a map, and use population and wage data…
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7th grade · DBQ #7
The Mongols
Were the Mongols destroyers or connectors? Students compare survivors of the conquests with travelers who crossed the empire safely, then take a…
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7th grade · DBQ #8
China's Civil Service Exams
Could anyone in imperial China win a government job by passing a test? Students weigh who passed, who was shut out, and what Confucius taught to…
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7th grade · DBQ #9
Tenochtitlan
How do you build a city of 200,000 people on a lake? Students solve the engineering problem themselves, then test their ideas against chinampas,…
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7th grade · DBQ #10
The Inca
How do you run an empire of millions without writing? Students explore quipus, storehouses, the mit'a, mountain terraces, and the road…
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7th grade · DBQ #11
The Printing Press
Was the printing press the most important invention of its time? Students use book data, Luther's Theses, and earlier movable type from China…
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7th grade · DBQ #12
Galileo on Trial
Why did a telescope and a few moons of Jupiter put Galileo on trial? Students trace the clash between new evidence and old authority from 1543 to…
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7th grade · DBQ #13
Conquest of the Aztec Empire
How did a few hundred Spaniards bring down the Aztec Empire? Students rank weapons, allies, and disease, then test that ranking against Spanish…
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7th grade · DBQ #14
The Columbian Exchange
Potatoes, horses, sugar, and smallpox crossed the Atlantic after 1492. Students sort the evidence into winners, losers, and mixed results, and…
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7th grade · DBQ #15
The Valladolid Debate
In 1550, Spain put its own conquest on trial. Students argue both sides of the Valladolid Debate in a structured academic controversy, then write…
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4th grade · Free
Sailing into the Unknown
Columbus, Marco Polo and the Age of Exploration. Three primary sources, a C.E.R. paragraph, rubric and answer key.
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★ Coming soon ★4th Grade DBQsGrade 4
4th grade
4th Grade DBQs
Inquiry DBQs that build 4th graders’ reading, sourcing and writing skills. Follow to hear when they go live.
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5th grade · Free
Religious Freedom in the Colonies
Roger Williams, Maryland and William Penn. Three primary sources, a C.E.R. paragraph, rubric and answer key.
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★ Coming soon ★5th Grade DBQsGrade 5
5th grade
5th Grade DBQs
Inquiry DBQs that build 5th graders’ reading, sourcing and writing skills. Follow to hear when they go live.
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★ Coming soon ★6th Grade Social StudiesGrade 6
8th grade · KY History #1
Crossing the Cumberland Gap
Why did thousands of families risk the dangerous trip through the Cumberland Gap? Students read explorers' journals, land and salt records,…
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8th grade · KY History #2
Revolutionary Kentucky
Who did Kentucky belong to during the Revolution? The King, a land company, Virginia, and the Shawnee and Cherokee all claimed it. Students weigh…
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8th grade · KY History #3
Kentucky Statehood
Why did Kentucky break away from Virginia? Students weigh petitions, a closed Mississippi River, frontier defense, and the Spanish Conspiracy to…
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8th grade · KY History #4
The Kentucky Resolutions
Were the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 a defense of liberty or a threat to the Union? Students read the Sedition Act, Jefferson's Kentucky…
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8th grade · KY History #5
Henry Clay's American System
Did Henry Clay's American System help or hurt Kentucky? Students weigh Clay's own defense, Jackson's Maysville Road veto, hemp and…
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8th grade · KY History #6
Bloody Monday
What caused Louisville's Bloody Monday riot in 1855? Students weigh the Know-Nothing platform, inflammatory newspaper editorials, eyewitness…
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8th grade · KY History #7
Opposing Slavery in Kentucky
Could you oppose slavery in Kentucky and stay in Kentucky? Students follow Cassius Clay's True American, John G. Fee, and the founding and…
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8th grade · KY History #8
Henry Clay's Compromises
Did Henry Clay's compromises save the Union or only delay the war? Students weigh Clay, Calhoun, Webster, a Northern reaction to the Fugitive…
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8th grade · KY History #9
Kentucky in the Civil War
Why did Kentucky stay in the Union? Students weigh the governor's refusal, the neutrality resolution, Lincoln's 'whole game'…
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8th grade · KY History #10
Camp Nelson
How did Camp Nelson become a road to freedom? Students follow enslaved Kentuckians who enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops, the expulsion of their…
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8th grade · KY History #11
Kentucky & the Reconstruction Amendments
Why did Kentucky reject the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments? Students read the General Assembly's votes, two governors' messages,…
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8th grade · U.S. History #1
Colonial America
Was colonial America a land of opportunity, and for whom? Students weigh an indenture contract, a servant's desperate letter, Equiano's…
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8th grade · U.S. History #2
The American Revolution
Were the colonists justified in rebelling against Britain? Students weigh the Stamp Act Congress, the Boston Massacre engraving, Common Sense, the…
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8th grade · U.S. History #3
Articles vs. Constitution
Was the Constitution really a better plan than the Articles of Confederation? Students compare the two plans side by side, read Washington,…
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8th grade · U.S. History #4
The Bill of Rights
Did the Constitution need a Bill of Rights? Students step into the 1787 ratification fight, weigh Hamilton, Madison, Brutus, and Jefferson, and…
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8th grade · U.S. History #5
Hamilton vs. Jefferson
Hamilton or Jefferson: whose vision was better for the new nation? Students read both men's opinions on the national bank, Hamilton's…
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8th grade · U.S. History #6
Indian Removal
Was Indian Removal justified? Students weigh Jackson's message to Congress against the Cherokee Nation's own petition, the Supreme…
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8th grade · U.S. History #7
Antebellum Reform
How effective were reformers in the 1840s and 1850s? Students read the Declaration of Sentiments, Douglass's Fourth of July speech, Dorothea…
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8th grade · U.S. History #8
Compromise and the Civil War
Could compromise have prevented the Civil War? Students trace the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska, Dred Scott, and…
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8th grade · U.S. History #9
Causes of the Civil War
Was the Civil War fought over slavery? Students read the secession declarations, the Cornerstone Speech, Lincoln's own words, and Jefferson…
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★ Coming soon · 8th grade ★
The 20-DBQ Bundle
Kentucky History + U.S. History
Both 8th grade series together, for less than buying them one at a time.
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Meet the teacher
Built in a real Kentucky classroom
I've taught for 17 years and currently teach 7th grade social studies in Kentucky. Every resource here is written for the Kentucky Academic Standards and tested with real students.
You can also find my resources on Teachers Pay Teachers: Kentucky Social Studies Corner.