Confession Reading

This worksheet helps students in Grades 4 and 5 strengthen reading comprehension, inferencing, and historical analysis by examining a primary-source confession from 1692. Students read a carefully selected excerpt and answer text-based questions that probe the speaker’s fears, motivations, and expectations, encouraging close reading of emotional language and psychological context during the Salem Witch Trials.

Learning Goals

• Analyzing Historical Documents (Grades 4-5) – Students interpret a primary-source confession to understand perspective and purpose.
• Text-Based Evidence – Learners support answers with specific words and phrases from the excerpt.
• Understanding Social Pressure and Fear – The activity highlights how fear and coercion influenced behavior and decisions.
• Inferencing Skills – Students draw conclusions about why false confessions occurred and what they reveal about Salem’s climate.

Instructional Benefits

• Teacher-Created Resource – Designed by educators to align with elementary ELA and social studies standards.
• Primary Source Accessibility – Short, guided questions make complex historical language manageable.
• Builds Emotional & Psychological Insight – Prompts focus on fear, pressure, and human response.
• Flexible Classroom Use – Ideal for close reading, guided practice, assessment, or discussion.
• Low-Prep Printable – Ready for classroom or homeschool use with minimal preparation.

This Confession Reading worksheet helps students understand how fear shaped actions during the Salem Witch Trials. By analyzing a primary source and reflecting on social pressure, learners strengthen comprehension, inferencing, and historical reasoning while making meaningful connections between mindset and behavior in early colonial America.

This worksheet is part of our Salem Witch Trials Worksheets collection.