This lesson helps students explore how history is “written,” and how our understanding of the past informs our choices and beliefs in the present. Students will view interviews with MacArthur Fellowship recipients, analyze the music of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical, and use the tools of historiography to understand how race, gender, class, and place shape historical narratives and our own relationship with our past.

This resource is part of the MacArthur Fellows Program Collection.