American History Mythbusters

Middle School Social Studies / 8th Grade

Students explore how historical stories can evolve into myths and legends; learn and practice key terms for understanding resource reliability; and identify the differences between primary and secondary sources. Throughout the unit, students think like a historian by using and applying skills including sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading in order to answer the question: How can we discover the truth of history? Students examine the major events that led up to the Revolutionary War and work in teams to bust the myth that the American Revolution is a story about privileged white men.  Students choose a marginalized group such as women, enslaved people, Native Americans, impoverished people, Spanish people – and use primary and secondary sources to construct how that group impacted – and was impacted – by the Revolution. Students end the unit by creating an original podcast to share their research and conclusions with the world.

Unit length: 4-5 weeks (20-22 hours)