Urban legend categories can contain a lot of information about the school’s top students, their community, and ancient idea processes.
Urban legends, ghost stories, unsolved mysteries, etc. : all networks have them. Maybe it would be fun to tell students, but do those stories have original educational value for history students?
I recently discovered, while teaching a lesson on the urban legends of our hometown in a local history class, that those fantastic, macabre stories offer students more than just funny stories: they can provide a variety of vital lessons.
First of all, what is an urban legend? An urban legend is a transmitted story that includes exaggerated or sensational elements. Scholars consider urban legends to be a form of folklore. Historically, urban legends spread by word of mouth, but social media now plays a vital role in their spread.
Teachers of psychology and sociology, as well as any formative culture, can incorporate regional urban legends into their curriculum. Even if we are not aware of it, urban legends can address deep human desires or teach important lessons. They might warn listeners that certain places, behaviors, or stories would possibly convey unique cultural norms or universal values.
According to Britannica, “Folklorists consider urban legends to reflect the anxieties and ideals of fashionable society. Womb. . . They therefore occupy as important a place in the study and compilation of folklore as the older classical tales.
For more information, you can read The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings, by Jan Harold Brunvand, a pioneer in the study of urban legends. This book can provide educators and scholars with an introduction to American urban legends and their importance to other people and society.
These stories give scholars a unique connection to their communities. Famous names, places, and occasions appear here, but in strange new ways.
They can help students see their hometown differently and link them to places they spend a day or two but probably won’t notice. As such, urban legends can be an important step forward in informing other people about their hometown, their social history, and the stories that give each place a unique identity.
Urban legends would possibly involve elements of ancient truths. While some are natural inventions, others are occasions that have become more sensational and exaggerated over the years. Teachers can leverage those elements to teach the “real story,” explore the number one resources for more evidence, and provide much-needed context for the stories.
One question that should be asked of scholars is, “Where does the genuine tale end and the myth begin?”
Below are some questions to consider.
Educators can associate local folklore with a number of national and global events. In our course, in a single class period, I taught exclusive urban legends in Erie, Pennsylvania.
For example, a UFO sighting in 1966 on the shores of Lake Erie led to the involvement of the U. S. Air Force in the U. S. UU. La elegance put press clippings and testimonies of the time to the test. World War II aerial technology and heightened fears about Soviet reconnaissance.
My lesson included several data resources from the time of the occasions in question. Teachers and librarians can use an urban legend lesson to teach the number one and secondary resource assessment. Pull newspaper clippings or attach scholars to virtual archives.
Ask scholars to compare number one resources and testimonials to trendy secondary resources. What do we discover?
On the second day of our urban legends program, I oversaw a bus tour that took us to several of the local sites we had discussed in the previous lesson. Below are examples of some of the urban legend locations covered.
Contact your local librarians, archivists, curators, and historians. Learn about urban legends. They may have concepts or resources. Visit your library. I discovered some very clever books about stories and ghosts in our region. Use your local newspaper, which may have search functions to locate digitized stories from decades ago.
Keep the following in mind as you go along: sometimes those stories can be violent or sinister. Choose age-appropriate urban legends and keep an eye on your audience.