​rethink.

In this unit, we will be exploring some assumptions often made about Christopher Columbus. Using what we already know, and exploring primary sources and many other resources, students will transform their understandings and form new opinions and beliefs about who Columbus really was. In the first lesson, students will be read two very different books about Christopher Columbus. Each book paints Columbus is a completely different light. In the second lesson, students will explore four excerpts from Columbus' journal, comparing and contrasting their interpretations with what they already know. In the third lesson, students will learn all about misrepresentations of other cultures in our pop culture world today. The lesson will end with students writing letters to Disney, voicing their opinions about these deceiving depictions. In the final wrap-up lesson, children will use visual thinking strategies to explore and interpret a piece of art work by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith that is based on Columbus' "discovery" of "America". Learners will finally use a collaging technique to fill in a silhouette of Columbus which represents their own views and opinions of him. By the end of this unit, students will likely have a different opinion/understanding of who Christopher Columbus really was.