A ready-to-print one-page worksheet that turns any real historical photograph into a source-criticism exercise in the Library of Congress's observe-question-reflect format. Free, no accounts, nothing to install — and guessNow's reveal shows the date, photographer and source so the evidence check has a real answer.
Print one copy per photograph, or open it on a tablet. It works with any image, but it is built around guessNow because that is where the hardest part of source criticism gets verifiable: the game reveals a genuine archival photograph piece by piece, and the answer screen shows the year, the photographer, the licence and the source. Students commit to a date first, then check their reasoning against the record. Run it as a whole class on a projector, in small groups on one phone, or individually.
Write down everything you can see without guessing. People and what they wear; vehicles, buildings and technology; signs and lettering; any writing or caption visible in the image; and the style of the photograph itself (colour or black-and-white, formal or casual). Date nothing yet. The goal of this column is facts you can point at, not conclusions. If a student says an old car, ask what exactly about the car looks old — that detail is the evidence.
Turn observations into an inference and be honest that it is one. Pair each observation with a guess grounded in it: that car has tail fins, so probably after 1950; there is a telegraph pole but no traffic, so probably before motor traffic was common. Write I think because I see. This is the step that usually dates the frame — and the step AI-generated imagery breaks, because there is no real photographer or record behind it.
For each inference, write the question that would confirm or kill it: what year did that car model come out? When were telegraph poles erected here? Was the photograph staged or a news photo? A good question names the missing record you would look up. guessNow turns this into the reveal: after you commit to a year the game shows the actual date, the photographer, the licence and the source, so the class can check every inference against the record.
Write your best year and a one-year range you are confident in before you reveal. Then play the round (or open the round's archive page) and compare: exactly right, inside the range, or further off than anyone expected? Record the real year and photographer. The value is not the score — it is the moment the class sees which clue carried the date, and why a confident guess can still be wrong.
A photograph is evidence only if you know where it came from. Write the photographer's name, the collection, and the licence. In guessNow these are shown at the reveal; across the wider archive they sit on every round page. Ask the class: who took this, when, and why does that matter? A government documentary photograph, a newspaper wire shot and a family snapshot carry different intentions — and different answers to whether we can trust it.
The worksheet only works if the photograph has a real record to check against. guessNow was built that way on purpose: every image is a genuine archival photograph from the Library of Congress and other public collections, dated and attributed — not stock, not AI-generated. That is what makes the Question column answerable and the source check real. The 10-minute primary-source activity built on these photographs uses the same observe-question-reflect method in a ready-to-run lesson.
For a class that wants to go past the year, the record closes the case. The Library of Congress photographic guide and our own dating an old photograph guide walk through narrowing a date from costume, technology and signage; the primary-source references give more ready-to-run sections; and the full archive is every photograph guessNow keeps, each with its provenance shown.