★ Inquiry DBQ Series · Grade 5 · Free

Religious Freedom in the Colonies

Did the colonies offer religious freedom?

A free, ready-to-teach mini-DBQ comparing three colonies. Students read three public domain documents, rate how much freedom each colony offered, and write one claim-evidence-reasoning paragraph about who had religious freedom and who did not.

Grade 5Colonial AmericaGoogle Slides2 class periodsFree

License: free for one teacher and their own students.

Get it free

Opens a one-page PDF with your "Make a copy" links to the Google Slides files. You need to be signed in to a Google account.

What's included

Student DBQ packet (18 pages): hook, background reading with vocabulary, Documents A–C with original excerpts, plain-words versions and questions, Evidence Organizer, bucketing and C.E.R. planner, paragraph page, 16-point rubric, and teacher guide with answer key, a sample paragraph and a First Amendment extension
Scaffolded version (17 pages): the same documents in plain words, with fill-in-the-blank questions, sentence starters, the same rubric and its own answer key
How to Use guide: standards, two-day pacing, teaching tips and grading notes

The documents

Document A: Massachusetts banishes Roger Williams (1635), with Williams's own memory of it
Document B: the Maryland Toleration Act (1649)
Document C: William Penn's Charter of Privileges for Pennsylvania (1701)

All public domain, with full source lines.