In this lesson, students learn about the vital role the First Amendment protections of free speech and a free press play in American democracy using four case studies of notable investigative (or “watchdog”) reporting. This jigsaw-style lesson has students join an “expert” group to focus on one specific case study.
Designed to increase students' understanding of, appreciation for, and ability to do documentary photography and photojournalism. Each three-hour class is divided between a discussion of issues and readings, and a group critique of students' projects. Students must have their own photographic equipment and be responsible for processing and printing: either by student or commercial lab. Students must show basic proficiency with their equipment. Readings include Susan Sontag, Robert Coles, Ken Light, Eugene Richards, and others. Previous photographic experience required.
The Chicago Public Schools typically operate with a $7.7 billion annual budget that now has over $2.3 billion in federal stimulus funding to address inequities, COVID-related impacts and gaping needs. That is a 30% increase beyond a typical CPS budget that normally has very little room to address historic inequities. However, there is no participatory budget process in place to allow students or CPS families to have their voices heard in the process. This unit plan is designed to change that and provide opportunities for students to directly influence the budget process at this critical moment when historic inequities have widened.
In this video, students learn about the life of Ethel Payne, the second Black woman to be a member of the White House Press Corps. In her position,Payne asked the questions others didn’t, and brought civil rights issues to a national audience. Her coverage of the Civil Rights Movement and international affairs, brought Black people’s experiences to the front page.
This video was made in conjunction with Makematic.
With so many people getting their news from their social media newsfeed, how can they evaluate what is good and what might be fake? With the help of a Youtube video on the subject, student do some evaluating. This lesson is part of a media unit curated at our Digital Citizenship website, "Who Am I Online?"
The poster linked below identifies and defines five types of misinformation: Satire, False context, Imposter content, Manipulated content, and Fabricated content.
In this writing-based unit, students will reflect on how global issues influence their lives through the lens of migration. Students will make personal connections to migration by exploring its impact on themselves and their families through research and interviews, resulting in a feature article on the theme of “My Personal Story of Migration.” This will encourage a “citizen of the world” mindset while developing positive identity awareness.
Presidents Washington ($1), Lincoln ($5), Jackson ($20), and Grant ($50) all appear on currency. But what about this guy Alexander Hamilton on the ten-spot? How did he get there? A sawbuck says you'll know the answer after reading this piece.
A free game that students can play at home or at school. Breaking Harmony introduces the concepts of fake news and misinformation.
Resources to help define what misinformation is, where it comes from, and how to navigate it.
Six best practices for talking to friends and family about sharing falsehoods online.
15.616 is an introduction to business law which covers the fundamentals, including contracts, liability, regulation, employment, and corporations, with an in-depth treatment of the legal issues relating to breakthrough technologies, including the legal framework of R&D, the commercialization of new high-technology products in start-ups and mature companies, and the liability and regulatory implications of new products and innovative business models. There is extensive attention to national and international intellectual property protection and strategies. Examples are drawn from many industries, including information technology, communications, and life sciences.
The role of interest groups in politics and government is a hot topic in the media today. This lesson uses the battle over school lunch ingredients to illustrate how interest groups and lobbying affect public policy. Take a side in the battle, create an interest group, and try to influence public policy.
This collection of lessons represent adapted and remixed instructional content for teaching media literacy and specifically civic online reasoning through distance learning. These lessons take students through the steps necessary to source online content, verify evidence presented, and corroborate claims with other sources.
The original lesson plans are the work of Stanford History Education Group, licensed under CC 4.0. Please refer to the full text lesson plans at Stanford History Education Group’s, Civic Online Reasoning Curriculum for specifics regarding background, research findings, and additional curriculum for teaching media literacy in the twenty-first century.
This lesson introduces students to the importance of corroborating arguments and verifying information across multiple online sources. Students practice corroborating claims and evidence presented in sources about mandatory Saturday school.
This lesson is designed to be taught after the Intro to Who's Behind the Information? and Intro to What's the Evidence? Saturday School lessons.
We must be able to analyze evidence in order to effectively evaluate online information. In this lesson, students practice evaluating evidence that is presented in three online arguments about mandatory Saturday school.
This lesson is designed to be taught following the Intro to Who's Behind the Information? Saturday School lesson.
Since information is always influenced by its author, analyzing who's behind the information should be a priority when evaluating online content. But too often, students attempt to evaluate information based on elements other than the source, such as the contents of a website, its appearance, or the evidence it supplies. In this lesson, students learn why the source of information is so important and practice analyzing information based on who's behind it.
Without learning to investigate who is behind information online, we risk being taken in by sources and arguments that are more complicated or conflicted than we realize. In this lesson, students read arguments about mandatory Saturday school as an introduction to the importance of investigating who is behind information and how a source’s motivation could affect what it presents.
Many sources compete for attention online, including partisan blogs and bogus sites posing as legitimate news organizations. This infographic can help you cut through the noise and learn how to evaluate sources for signs of credibility – as well as for red flags that signal a source should be avoided.
This new publication by UNESCO is a timely resource and highly topical subject for all those who practice or teach journalism in this Digital Age. UNESCO's new handbook is an essential addition to teaching syllabi for all journalism educators, as well as practising journalists and editors who are interested in information, how we share it and how we use it. It is mission critical that those who practice journalism understand and report on the new threats to trusted information. Political parties, health professionals, business people, scientists, election monitors and others will also find the handbook useful in navigating the information disorder. Written by experts in the fight against disinformation, this handbook explores the very nature of journalism - with modules on why trust matters; thinking critically about how digital technology and social platforms are conduits of the information disorder; fighting back against disinformation and misinformation through media and information literacy; fact-checking 101; social media verification and combating online abuse. The seven individual modules are available online to download that enables readers to develop their own course relevant to their media environment.
This handbook is also useful for the library and information science professionals, students, and LIS educators for understanding the different dimensions of fake news and disinformation.
Table of Contents
Module One | Truth, Trust and Journalism: Why it Matters | by Cherilyn Ireton
Module Two | Thinking about "Information Disorder": Formats of Misinformation, Disinformation and Mal-Information | by Claire Wardle & Hossein Derakshan
Module Three | News Industry Transformation: Digital Technology, Social Platforms and the Spread of Misinformation and Disinformation |by Julie Posetti
Module Four | Combatting Disinformation and Misinformation Through Media and Information Literacy (MIL) | by Magda Abu-Fadil
Module Five | Fact-Checking 101 | by Alexios Mantzarlis
Module Six | Social Media Verification: Assessing Sources and Visual Content | by Tom Trewinnard and Fergus Bell
Module Seven | Combatting Online Abuse: When Journalists and Their Sources are Targeted | by Julie Posetti
Additional Resources: https://en.unesco.org/fightfakenews