Verifying Historical Claims on Social Media

Social media is designed to allow anyone to freely post any claims, whether substantiated or not. Though this can make social media a powerful source of information, it also means that we must verify claims before we accept them as fact. This lesson will help students develop and practice verifying claims about the past presented on social media. After a short lecture on the importance of verifying information on social media and an overview of approaches to verification, students practice verifying social media sources on Reconstruction, first as a whole class and then in small groups.