Essential Questions: 

•   What defines a monument? What stories does it tell?

•   How can we challenge the narratives created by those in power?

         

       When we think of our national monuments, our national parks, our skyscrapers, our schools, we often feel pride, a sense of identity, or a sense of meaning and purpose that tell a story to all of us. But what happens when we create fictionalized or incomplete stories with these monuments? What happens when these monuments begin to represent oppression, racism, or violence? What happens when the reality of these buildings and statues reveals a much darker truth about our country and the oppressive systems that it was built upon?

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      In this unit, students questioned what we define as a “monument” and examined the ways in which monuments often tell an incomplete or self-fulfilling story for those in power. As they filled in the gaps and the silenced voices that exist within these narratives, students sought to retell a more nuanced, rough, and complete story of our nation’s hidden history as they examined a monument of their choice in order to explore the hard truths that are often hidden in the cold stone of the statues, buildings, and memorials of our nation.

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