With today's preponderance of fake news, false stories, misinformation and propaganda, it’s an important time to reinforce critical thinking skills and remind students and citizens not to accept information at face value.
This includes historical information. Today citizens learn much of their historical information from digital and visual media.
Citizens should be able to ask smart historical questions, understand historical context, and recognize when a historical fact is being misrepresented or distorted.
When readers find historical information, a historical statement, or a reference to historical fact in any online media, we encourage them to ask themselves the above questions and think critically about what they encounter.
Our "
6 Steps To Historical Literacy
" is already being used in classrooms. Freda Bradley, a faculty member at
West Virginia University at Parkersburg, wrote the following
:
"I teach in rural Appalachia in a small community college. I saw this on social media and immediately downloaded it. Today’s lesson was evaluation of YouTube videos for historical accuracy, and I decided to use this as my guide. The students loved this!! They all said they felt much better prepared to evaluate content afterward, and it was easy to follow and understand. This is now going to be a staple in my classes."
