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Digital Citizenship: Real News vs Fake News

A recent study by Stanford University found an overwhelming majority of students were not able to tell the difference between so-called fake news and real news. Part of the solution involves providing students with the media literacy skills they need to evaluate sources, including social media. Students will explore the problems with fake news and gain confidence exploring the media that they come across every day.

Duration
Less than 1 hour
Lesson Type
1:1 Lesson

Lesson Created By: AmandaBoyd

Essential Question

How do you know if a news source is reliable?

Grade(s):

  • 8

Subject(s):

Other Instructional Materials or Notes:

Lesson Progression

1. Explore:
How do you know if a news story, viral video or even photographs are real or fake? Take a look at the 2 videos provided to see how videos can look so real, yet be so fake.

2. Explain:

Take notes from the NY Times opening video and any other helpful information from the article that will help you decipher between real and fake news.
- What is the most interesting thing you learned from reading this article or any of the articles found linked within this article?

Assessments

https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/skills-practice-distinguishing-between-fact-and-opinion/
Choose an article under the YOUR TASK section and decipher what you believe to be fact vs. opinion. Create a table in a Google Doc that has a column for facts and a column for opinions. Copy and paste various sentences into each column.