New: free 4th & 5th grade mini-DBQs! Get them free. Full grade 4 and 5 DBQs are coming soon.

KentuckySocial Studies Corner
★ Inquiry DBQ Series · #6

The Black Death DBQ

How did trade turn a disease into a disaster?

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 to build an argument.

Grade 7World Civilizations 600–1600Google Slides3 class periods

License: one teacher and their own students.

Buy now · $6.00

Secure checkout through Gumroad. You'll get your "Make a copy" links to the Google Slides files right away.

What's included

  • Teacher presentation (16 slides) with speaker notes
  • Full DBQ packet (25 pages): hook, background essay, documents with analysis questions, sourcing organizer, bucketing and outline, writing task, 4-point rubric, teacher guide with answer key and sample essay
  • Scaffolded version (10 pages): shorter excerpts, vocabulary support and sentence starters, with its own answer key

The documents

  • Boccaccio, The Decameron
  • De’ Mussis on the siege of Caffa
  • Ibn al-Wardi on the plague
  • Map of the plague’s spread
  • Population and wage data
  • Ragusa’s first quarantine law

Good to know

Class time
3 periods of 45–50 minutes
Pages
51 total
Format
Editable Google Slides
Answer key
Included

Standards: KAS Grade 7: 7.G.HI.2, 7.E.ST.4, 7.I.CC.3, 7.I.Q, 7.I.UE, 7.I.CC