Play & Learn
Teach
Home >
Educator Blog >

Dive into Primary Sources & Inquiry-based Learning with Three New DBQuests

  • Teaching with iCivics

Dive into Primary Sources & Inquiry-based Learning with Three New DBQuests

Are you looking for ways to incorporate primary source analysis into your lessons without spending hours preparing? 

Unlock the power of inquiry-based learning with our three new DBQuests! Each DBQuest asks students a big question which acts as a guiding light for in-depth analysis of three multimedia primary resources. With step-by-step guidance from a virtual writing assistant, students will gather evidence, check sources, analyze what they mean, and write responses to important questions.

Explore Our Three Newest DBQuests

Non-Voting Delegates in Congress

Today there are six non-voting members of Congress representing American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In this DBQuest, students will explore the duties and limitations of non-voting members from the perspective of the members themselves.

Policy, Public Interest, and… Margarine?

This DBQuest invites students to take a closer look at how the public can inform and impact public policy over time. Students will review and analyze primary sources from 1900–1949 to discover how legislation can change and the role of public opinion in these changes. It’s a DBQuest with extra butter (or margarine) on top! 

Kids Making a Difference

Hear as kids from three different times in history share, in their own words, how they helped their communities and country tackle the issue of food insecurity in times of war and peace. In this DBQuest, students will use evidence from primary sources to support analysis, answer questions, and describe how young people have made a difference in their communities throughout U.S. history. 

Back to Educator Blog

Explore more from the educator blog

  • Teaching with iCivics
Amanda builds literacy that strengthens her students’ civic decision-making

My main drive as an educator is to teach literacy as a way of understanding the world. My focus is not just reading and writing, but building literacy in how students navigate the internet, politics, and the world around them. It’s about vetting sources, understanding if what you’re reading is

Read more
  • Teaching with iCivics
Sam helps her students connect the founding documents to their daily lives for the Civic Star Challenge

A few years ago, one of my colleagues invited Mary Beth Tinker to speak at our school—she was the student plaintiff in the landmark case Tinker v. Des Moines. It was an incredible experience to hear her calmly describe what it was like to participate in the case, recounting each

Read more
  • Teaching with iCivics
We Can Teach Hard Things Like Civil Rights

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Theodore Parker That’s not a typo you see in the attribution above. While the oft-cited quote is chiefly credited to Martin Luther King, Jr., who did indeed speak those brilliant words during more than one speech, it

Read more