Social Studies Middle School Guide

• logical fallacies • conspiracy theories

of fearmongering to how misinformation spreads in present-day social media debates. • A student determining whether a letter from the American Revolution is authentic would apply similar skills when checking if an online video has been deepfaked. • A student examining Nazi propaganda would compare how historical forgeries were used to justify policies, similar to how deepfake videos influence political debates today.

• This information has been/has not been manipulated and/or fabricated because…

• Is this source authentic or forged? • Has this document been altered? • Is it an original or a later copy? • Has the content been manipulated or fabricated? • Can authenticity be verified through reverse image searches or lateral reading?

• Detect forgeries or altered documents. • Use digital tools to verify authenticity. • Distinguish between original and edited sources.

General Historical Analysis/ Authenticity

News Literacy Project. (n.d.). RumorGuard . News Literacy Project. Retrieved April 28, 2025, from https://rumorguard.org © 2025 Jodi Ide, Teacher Specialist, Canyons School District. All rights reserved. Sharing or reproduction permitted with author’s permission.