This activity asks students to read and analyze news coverage of Chauvin’s trial.

This resource will help students identify whether stories published by a news organization are also written by that news organization.

Taking a closer look at work choice and framing, this activity helps students consider how these factors shape news coverage.

Let’s examine how records obtained by ProPublica under public information laws shaped a Sept. 14, 2020, investigation by the nonprofit news organization. This story spotlights concerns about COVID-19 outbreaks in meatpacking plants, focusing on emails that highlight “the meat industry’s influence and access to” government officials. ProPublica’s findings offer an example of the watchdog role journalists play in a democracy.

We’ll take a closer look at the use of records alongside elements of fairness and transparency in the newsgathering process.

This activity explores the editing rules and language suggestions outlined in The Associated Press Stylebook that news organizations follow, including entries about race-related coverage. Students will read from AP and discuss their decision to capitalize "Black" and other race and ethnic-related nuances.

News Goggles annotations and activities provide news literacy takeaways on timely topics. These resources feature examples of actual news coverage, including full news reports, headlines, breaking news alerts or excerpts.

This video explores timely examples of misinformation, addresses journalism and press freedom topics and examines social media trends and issues.

In this edition of News Goggles, we examine how some news organizations label updates and show transparency in their newsgathering on developing stories.

**This resource was published by the News Literacy Project.The News Literacy Project is identified as a “nonpartisan national educational nonprofit” designed to strengthen critical thinking skills and actively seek out credible information. NLP’s strategic framework highlights that in a Stanford History Education Group  research, 96% of high school participants “failed to challenge the credibility of a source.” Additionally, over 50% of high school participants “incorrectly classified evidence as ‘strong.’’ Based on this and other educational research findings, NLP’s aims to advocate and equip educators and learners with programs and resources to promote media literacy. Users have the option of subscribing to NLP to receive up-to-date resources and research that is conducted. Further information can be found here: https://checkology.org/Cost and other restrictions:  This is a free resource. However, to use it, educators and learners will need to provide an email address and other contact information. 

A free quiz developed by the News Literacy project that focuses on combating misinformation on social media platforms.

By asking, "what is news?," this lesson helps students understand that what appears as “the news” on any given day is the result of a series of judgments and conversations in newsrooms across the country and around the world.

The 4-day unit is designed to center on the voices of a marginalized community, Muslim Americans, as a foundation for students to explore and celebrate the plurality of values and identities in their own classrooms. Students will be engaging with journalism, practicing active listening, compassion, and empathy, and meet differences with curiosity rather than prejudice.

Students begin this unit by reading The Proudest Blue, a picture book by Olympic medalist Ibtihaj Muhammad that captures the challenges Faizah and Asiyah face when Asiyah wore her hijab to school. Students discuss discrimination and focus on the the hijab as a symbol of cultural identity.

Then students screen a short documentary film “Holding Fire.” The documentary follows Somia Elrowmeim, a naturalized American Yemeni immigrant and activist, who fights for the rights of South Brooklyn Muslims. The film provides a behind-the-scenes look at how grassroots organizing works especially during the modern Islamophobia period.

Driven by the courage and joy that Faizah, Asiyah, and Somia demonstrate in celebrating their cultures and standing up in their communities, students will explore these themes in their classroom. This mini-unit is being taught as a part of a longer classroom exploration of conflict and resolution.

This lesson provides students with the opportunity to continue practicing click restraint, a strategy that involves resisting the urge to immediately click on a result and instead scanning the page to make a more informed choice about where to click first. In this lesson, students learn how to analyze the search engine results page in order to make hypotheses about the kinds of sources and information generated in response to the search terms.

This lesson serves as an extension to the Click Restraint lesson. We suggest you teach that lesson before this one.

Migration normally happens out of necessity: work, natural resources, or safety for one’s life. The desire to migrate may be a solution for many but there are barriers that can prohibit the need for safety and prosperity. A large number of students’ families are renting or experiencing homelessness in many parts of the United States. They are entering secondary education ready to get jobs to help their families to gain or just maintain a stable home. Students are also preparing for their small individual migrations from their current schooling location and/or homes to a place of post-secondary education or occupation.

Who makes decisions about the environment? How do decisions about environmental issues affect a community’s health? Who is an activist? How do individuals inform and/or advocate for their communities?

Students will first investigate the global problem of plastics pollution. Through an exploration of maps and data, including from the Pulitzer Center Resource Plastic that Travels 8,000 Miles: The Global Crisis in Recycling, students will gain knowledge of issues pertaining to plastics, both on land and in our oceans. They will utilize the Pulitzer Center resource Joane: We Can End the Toxic Use and Burning of Plastics as one example of a clear community action taken by young people to help bring about awareness and change in their community. Through reading the article and watching the related video, students will identify character traits of Joane, the featured activist, as well as discuss the process of engaging in a civic action.

Next, students will examine environmental issues in communities across Chicago, engaging with locally-relevant themes such as the effects of lead in water and soil, microplastics, and air pollution. They will define the terms environmental justice and environmental racism and discuss how those ideas relate to issues locally and globally. During this part of the unit, students will continue to identify traits that exemplify activism in the leaders highlighted in the articles, as well as determine what traits they may share with activists.

Finally, students will create an infographic or other call-to-action highlighting an environmental issue of their choosing.

Examine the seven forms of propaganda found in advertising and politics. Discover the persuasive methods behind the messaging we see every day and gain skills to effectively identify and counter them. A classroom gallery walk challenges students to detect the propaganda techniques at work and evaluate their effectiveness.

How do counter narratives in our communities demonstrate that the historic ideals of liberty and equality born in the Enlightenment have become increasingly accessible to more communities today through the efforts of individuals or organizations?

This unit will examine the traditional themes of the European Enlightenment such as liberty and justice. Students will then explore how the same thinkers who left a legacy of proposed freedoms also created systemic discrimination for many communities. After engaging with primary sources and examining the history of imperialism, students will review news stories funded by the Pulitzer Center that connect this legacy to current global events. Ultimately students will create their own projects highlighting a narrative in their own community that counters traditional Enlightenment legacies. The idea is to identify and report on the disruptors to the past stereotypes.

What is the media? What does it do? Students examine the types and roles of the media by taking on the role of newsmaker and agenda setter.

Students are introduced to the seven standards of quality journalism and their description.