Causes of the American Revolution DBQ Primary Sources PDF — Grades 8–12, Two Levels

Printable American Revolution DBQ for grades 8–12: eight primary sources from 1763 to 1776 in Core and Advanced editions, with an essay prompt, answer keys, and a two-lesson plan. PDF plus editable DOCX. Students argue whether the colonists wanted independence all along, or Britain pushed them there.

• 8 cited documents, from the 1763 Proclamation Line to the Declaration of Independence

• Two levels of the same sources: Core (grades 8–10) and Advanced (grades 10–12), including a full DBQ-style essay on Advanced

• Two-lesson plan with timings, timeline, and glossary

• Teacher answer keys for both levels; Advanced key includes a 7-point scoring guide

• Print-ready PDF and editable DOCX

• Every excerpt cited to its printed edition with a link to the scan

How this was made: AI tools helped draft the context notes, questions, and answer keys, and helped find and format the excerpts. Every quotation was checked word for word against the cited source text. The historical documents are public-domain originals, not AI-generated. Preview images come from the actual pack pages; no AI images are used.

Source 1 uses the eighteenth-century word Indians for Native nations; our notes say Native nations. Source 6 describes killings at Lexington.

The documents speak for British officials and colonial leaders. Native nations, enslaved people and loyalists are not heard here; class discussion can raise whose voices are missing.

The Stretch task sends students to the full Declaration, which includes a grievance that uses a degrading term for Native peoples; preview it before assigning (see the teacher note under Differentiation).

The scan links on the cards open the full printed documents. The full Causes and Necessity (Doc 6), Common Sense (Doc 7) and Declaration of Independence (Doc 8) each use a degrading term for Native peoples; preview those pages before sharing the links with students.

Licence: granted by the rights holder in addition to the store's standard End User Licence. One teacher may copy and print this pack for their own students and post it in a closed class LMS. No reposting, resale or sharing with other teachers. Extra teachers need their own licence. Need copies for other teachers? Message us.

Refunds. This is a digital download, so it can't be returned once you have downloaded it. If you change your mind before downloading, don't download the file: message us and we'll arrange a full refund. If a file is faulty, won't open, or isn't what this page describes, message us and we'll fix it or refund you in full. Any sourcing error you report (a wrong quote, date, speaker or citation) is corrected free, at any time, and we send you the corrected files.