Many IGCSE History students in Nigeria enjoy the stories of past events but struggle with source evaluation and structured argument writing, especially in Paper 2 and the depth studies in Paper 1.

This article introduces “The Detective’s Gallery”, a strategy where students analyse conflicting historical “clues” about an event, learning to judge bias, purpose, and reliability—skills that directly translate to exam success.

Why Sources Are Difficult for Nigerian Learners

In Nigerian classrooms, students often:

• Treat sources as either “true” or “false,” not as perspectives.
• Repeat what the source says rather than evaluating it.
• Struggle to connect source analysis with their own written arguments.

IGCSE History requires them to:

• Ask who produced a source, why, and for whom.
• Compare sources to each other and to their own contextual knowledge.
• Use sources as evidence in an argument, not just as illustrations.

Creating a Detective’s Gallery in a Nigerian Classroom

Choose a key event from the IGCSE syllabus (e.g., a moment from World War I, the Cold War, or another depth study your school follows). Then:

• Prepare 4–6 different sources about that event: photographs, newspaper extracts, speeches, diary entries, cartoons.
• Print or project them around the room as “Exhibits” in a gallery.

Tell students they are historical detectives working in a Nigerian research institute. Their job is to:

• Visit each exhibit.
• Take notes on what the source shows or claims.
• Write quick judgments on bias, purpose, and reliability.

Provide a simple evaluation grid:

• Who created it?
• When and where?
• Why (purpose)?
• What might make it biased?
• How useful is it for answering our historical question?

From Observation to Evaluation

Train Nigerian students to move beyond description:

• Instead of: “The source shows soldiers in a trench.”
• Encourage: “This British photograph was likely taken for propaganda to show brave soldiers, so it may underplay the fear and suffering in trenches.”

Model this process on the board using Nigerian examples:

• Compare two modern Nigerian newspaper articles about the same political event.
• Ask: “Which newspaper might be supporting which side? How does that shape what they show or don’t show?”

Then link this thinking back to the historical sources in the Detective’s Gallery.

Building Strong Historical Arguments

Once students have evaluated the sources, ask them to construct arguments:

• Pose a focused question based on the syllabus (e.g., “How far was X responsible for Y?”).
• Ask students to choose two or three sources and their own knowledge to support a specific viewpoint.

Provide an essay frame:

• Introduction: State your overall answer (“X was partly responsible because…”).
• Paragraphs:
  • Use at least one source per paragraph.
  • Explain what it shows.
  • Evaluate its reliability.
  • Add contextual knowledge.
• Conclusion: Weigh up which causes or perspectives are most convincing.

This helps Nigerian students see that source analysis and essay writing are linked, not separate tasks.

Connecting History to Nigerian Experiences

Where the syllabus allows, draw parallels with Nigerian historical and contemporary issues:

• Use examples of how events are represented differently in Nigerian media or history books.
• Discuss how colonial history and post-independence narratives might be told differently by different groups.

This makes the idea of bias and perspective concrete and relevant, not abstract.

Question Format Guide

• Cambridge IGCSE History Paper 2 (Source-Based Paper):

  • Use Detective’s Gallery activities with exam-style sources so Nigerian students regularly practise identifying origin, purpose, bias, and usefulness.
  • After each gallery, set short structured questions mirroring Paper 2, such as “How far does Source B prove that…?” and model high-scoring responses.

• Cambridge IGCSE History Paper 1 (Core and Extended – Depth Studies and Structured Questions):

  • Train students to bring source skills into their depth-study essays, citing sources as supporting or challenging evidence alongside their own knowledge.
  • Provide planning templates that prompt them to weigh different causes or interpretations, helping them build clear, balanced arguments.

• School-Based History Assessments in Nigerian Cambridge Schools:

  • Include at least one source-evaluation task in each unit test, drawing on both exam sources and Nigerian examples of media bias or differing accounts of events.
  • Use rubrics that highlight the difference between description, explanation, and evaluation, guiding Nigerian students toward the analytical level Cambridge expects.

How AI Buddy Supports These Strategies

AI Buddy helps Nigerian IGCSE History teachers build rich Detective’s Gallery experiences without spending hours hunting for and adapting sources. You can prompt it to assemble sets of contrasting documents, images, and short narratives around syllabus topics or Nigerian-linked themes, then generate guiding questions and sample evaluations that model the language of bias, purpose, reliability, and usefulness.

When you indicate which depth studies you teach and the kinds of misconceptions your students have, AI Buddy can craft source-based practice questions and essay prompts that move learners from simple description to evidence-based judgement. This allows you to focus class time on discussion and reasoning, while AI Buddy handles the heavy lifting of source selection and task design.