Students investigate how people come to believe claims are true by tracing evidence across current election messaging, The Crucible, and the history of the American buffalo. They build investigation notebooks, practice fact-checking and source tracing with an investigative journalist, and test their thinking through critique with peers and a high school government class. The work leads to a public awareness campaign and exhibition pieces that ask audiences to examine propaganda, bias, rhetoric, and revision in real time. The experience helps 8th graders become sharper researchers, more thoughtful collaborators, and more responsible communicators in their community.

Students will investigate self-generated questions about truth and belief by tracing sources, fact-checking claims, distinguishing fact from opinion and reasoned judgment, and recording an evidence trail in investigation notebooks. They will analyze how propaganda, rhetoric, bias, and perspective shape public understanding through The Crucible, election-related media, and the history of the American buffalo, then write and speak discipline-based arguments grounded in credible evidence. Students will collaborate in discussions, gallery walks, journalist check-ins, and a cross-grade evidence review to critique claims, revise their thinking, and communicate with clarity, empathy, and open-mindedness. They will create and present a public awareness campaign and exhibition pieces that show how their claims changed over time and how they tested what could be trusted.

Students will create investigation notebooks, source-tracing logs, mini-investigation findings, and annotated claim charts as working products they revise across the project. Midway products include acted and rehearsed scenes from The Crucible with commentary scripts, plus buffalo comparison drafts with maps, infographics, and evidence-based written claims about manifest destiny, indigeneity, and public belief. Final products include an awareness campaign that either exposes propaganda or deliberately uses persuasive techniques, a live gallery-style performance and commentary, a buffalo comparison exhibit, and a truth-testing station where visitors examine election claims and student evidence trails. At Exhibition Night, students present these products in an interdisciplinary Knowledge Forum with Math/Science, showing their claims, sources, revisions, and audience-ready media.

Open with a fast mini-investigation: present students with a mix of current election posts, a historical image or quote tied to The Crucible, and a buffalo/Manifest Destiny source, then ask teams to sort each one into “trust,” “question,” or “needs more evidence” and defend their thinking. Introduce investigation notebooks right away, with the investigative journalist joining live or by video to model one simple source-tracing and fact-checking routine students use on a topic they personally care about. End with a gallery walk where students compare how different groups judged truth, name what evidence changed their minds, and generate questions they want to pursue about propaganda, bias, and who decides what people believe.

Host an interdisciplinary Knowledge Forum at the all-school Exhibition Night with the Math/Science class, where students present a gallery of “truth-testing” experiences for families, peers, and staff. One section features short live performances of selected The Crucible scenes followed by student commentary connecting rhetoric, fear, and bias to current public messages; another showcases buffalo comparison exhibits with infographics, maps, and written claims about manifest destiny, indigeneity, and how language shaped public belief and action. A third station invites visitors to examine student-curated midterm election claims, inspect source trails in investigation notebooks, and leave responses as students explain how they fact-checked, revised weak evidence, and built their final awareness campaign. Students can also present campaign pieces that either expose propaganda or use persuasive techniques transparently, naming their claim, audience, evidence trail, and key revisions.