Infographics and charts can be useful tools in helping us understand complex information and data, but they can also be used to deceive. Students need to move beyond surface-level evaluations and think critically about what is presented and who is presenting it. In this assessment, students are asked to examine two digital graphics and determine which provides better evidence. In order to answer successfully, students must evaluate the source of each graphic.

Given the vast amount of information available online, students need to be able to distinguish between legitimate and dubious evidence. This assessment measures whether students can evaluate evidence when it takes the form of a vivid photograph.

Many news organizations have turned to native advertising as a source of revenue. By definition, native advertising tries to sell or promote a product in the guise of a news story. This makes it difficult for unsuspecting readers to know if and when there is an ulterior motive behind the information they encounter. This task assesses students’ ability to distinguish between an article and an advertisement.

In order for students to effectively navigate the news, they need to understand the differences between news stories and opinion columns. This task assesses a student’s ability to recognize and differentiate news and opinion articles in an online format.

Twitter has become a powerful source of information about breaking news. Surveys show that young people increasingly rely on it for news about events as they unfold in real time. But it’s not always easy to distinguish a tweet that’s based on a legitimate source from one that relies on hearsay. This assessment taps a student’s ability to assess the trustworthiness of different kinds of tweets.

When young people want to find out more about a topic or question, they often turn to Google. But open Internet searches routinely turn up contradictory results that mix fact with falsehood. Making sense of search results is even more challenging with politically loaded topics. This task asks students to perform an open search about a controversial figure in order to assess their ability to wade through information to find sources, evidence, and arguments that they trust.

When reading any online source, students need to ask: Who is behind this information? This task assesses students' ability to recognize that an article is sponsored and address why that might make it less reliable.

The Internet teems with websites seeking to advance specific political agendas while concealing their true intent, identity, or backers. These sites often have high production values and the trappings of legitimacy (e.g., boards of directors, links to academic studies, even 501(c)(3) status). In this digital task, students are asked to evaluate such a website.

Much of Assyria's history is closely tied to its southern neighbor, Babylonia. The two Mesopotamian empires spoke similar languages and worshipped most of the same gods. They were often rivals on the battlefield for influence in the ancient Middle East.

In Athenian democracy, every citizen was required to participate or suffer punishment. This practice stands in stark contrast to modern democratic governments in which citizens can choose whether or not they wish to participate. In Athenian democracy, all citizens pulled their weight.

The Battle of Saratoga was the turning point of the Revolutionary War. The scope of the victory is made clear by a few key facts: On October 17, 1777, 5,895 British and Hessian troops surrendered their arms. General John Burgoyne had lost 86 percent of his expeditionary force that had triumphantly marched into New York from Canada in the early summer of 1777.

This is an essay/assignment designed for a college-level (100/200) media course focused on fake/biased news reporting. 

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Black Power Movement. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This task was developed by high school and postsecondary mathematics and design/pre-construction educators, and validated by content experts in the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and the National Career Clusters Knowledge & Skills Statements. It was developed with the purpose of demonstrating how the Common Core and CTE Knowledge & Skills Statements can be integrated into classroom learning - and to provide classroom teachers with a truly authentic task for either mathematics or CTE courses.

This task was developed by high school and postsecondary mathematics and design/pre-construction educators, and validated by content experts in the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and the National Career Clusters Knowledge & Skills Statements. It was developed with the purpose of demonstrating how the Common Core and CTE Knowledge & Skills Statements can be integrated into classroom learning - and to provide classroom teachers with a truly authentic task for either mathematics or CTE courses.

This task was developed by high school and postsecondary mathematics and design/pre-construction educators, and validated by content experts in the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and the National Career Clusters Knowledge & Skills Statements. It was developed with the purpose of demonstrating how the Common Core and CTE Knowledge & Skills Statements can be integrated into classroom learning - and to provide classroom teachers with a truly authentic task for either mathematics or CTE courses.

In this first unit of second grade, students read multiple versions of a classic fairy tale, Cinderella. Through reading various versions of the same story, students are not only exposed to a wide variety of cultures, but they are also challenged to think about how the culture, or setting, of the story influences the plot. In first grade fiction, students took a trip around the world, exploring a wide variety of themes and stories from all over, in order to build a foundational understanding that our world is made up of many diverse and unique cultures. This unit builds on the exposure to new cultures students received in first grade and provides an opportunity for students to explore the idea that even though cultures may appear to be different, there are many things embedded within the unique characteristics of different cultures that make them similar. Storytelling, and the role of storytelling, is one of those similarities. It is our hope that this unit, in connection with others in the sequence, helps students build empathy and understanding of the world around them.

The different versions of Cinderella help students understand the components of a fairy tale and the lessons associated with traditional fairy tales. Over the course of the unit, students will be challenged to ask and answer questions about the text and illustrations as a way of deepening their understanding of plot, setting, and characters. In the first section of the unit, students will focus deeply on the setting, characters, and plot of the different versions of Cinderella, learning to compare and contrast the nuances across different versions. In the second section of the unit, students will read Cinderella stories that vary from the traditional plot structure but still include the underlying theme that a person’s actions (good or bad) influence his/her life outcomes. In this section students will dive deeply into three texts to analyze different characters’ traits and how the author uses those traits to help reveal the lesson of the story.

When we have a question or are searching for sources, we likely turn to a search engine to help us find answers. We often click on the first result—perhaps because sifting through all the results takes time, or because we assume the first result is the most trustworthy. But the first result is not always the best place to start. Spending a little more time scanning search results can help us make a more informed choice about where to go first.

This lesson introduces students to click restraint, a strategy that involves resisting the urge to immediately click on the first search result. Instead, students scan the results to make a more informed choice about where to go first.

Week 36, Day 1---Day 5
Culminating Activity: Reading and Writing Identity
Memoir: Special memories about a person, place, object or time
"The memoir you will be writing will be a reflection of how you have changed as a reader and writer this year. It’s going to be like a year in review, so you will create a mini book as part of the memoir project.
Some of you may be thinking that this is the same as a personal narrative, but memoirs are more about looking back and thinking about how things have changed over time just like we did at the beginning of class. Narratives tell a story, but memoirs show how the event was meaningful to the author’s life. Also, memoirs are only snapshots. They don’t include the person’s whole life. Now I will add the characteristics of memoirs to the chart.
Use 1st person
Use true descriptions of actual events
Describe any problems faced by the author
Include the author’s feelings about the situation or event
*Narrative Graphic Organizer