Lesson Reflection / Description:
The lesson our group created focuses on “fake news," a fairly recent phenomenon that has spread like wildfire across the Internet and other social outlets, especially after the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th U.S. President. The reason we chose this as our focal point is because students tend to accept the information presented to them at face value, especially if it comes from an accredited news outlet. Unfortunately, this becomes problematic for students when determining the reliability and trustworthiness of the evidence in front of them. Therefore, we created a lesson that utilizes three separate news reports, written on the exact same day by well-known news companies, about President Trump’s historic meeting with Kim Jong-un. It is our intention for students to understand how political bias frames the way in which news organizations detail and analyze specific events (especially within the political sphere). Thus, we specifically picked articles from The New York Times, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Fox News because these companies tend to align themselves politically with the left, moderate, and right, respectively.
We decided that this lesson would be most beneficial for 11th and 12th graders who have already been taught and trained how to properly source information, especially given the political nature of the event at the center of this assignment. By this time in their academic career, upperclass high school students should already understand that the author of an article, and the bias that he or she is likely to have (based on their characteristics and context -- known as sourcing) is just as important, or possibly even more, as what is said. This is why the lesson instructs students to individually complete sourcing, contextualization, and close-reading questions for one of the three reports assigned to each group. Younger students, who generally pay less attention to political events, may not have the capacity to do so without being too vague or relying on prior conceptions passed on to them from their parents.
To assist students with sourcing the reports and comprehending the bias held by each of the three news companies, we have provided them with three non-biased outside sources that explain the political partisanship each outlet retains. This will give them better insight as to how the wording and emotion in their article was framed. Having such a perspective will allow them to elaborate on their report’s authenticity and reliability when explaining the information to their fellow group members. Even though the option is left to each individual student, we hope that they come to a consensus that the BBC report was the most unbiased and reliable source, based on their political centrism.
A possible shortcoming of this lesson is that it is structured for students in such a way that leads them to a predictable conclusion. This was done to fit a slotted time within the curriculum. However, if time were not an obstacle, we would have had students complete a similar analysis focused on an event from any president that they desired. Therefore, we offered this option as an extension assignment. Another shortcoming is the recentness in which President Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un. Based on the contemporary nature of this event, it is difficult to distinguish which news outlet actually reported the most accurate information (due to the fact that there has yet to be any updates or closure). This is why we also created an extension assignment that would allow students to decide which of the three articles from today’s lesson were the most accurate in their reporting (although maybe not the most reliable at the time they were written). The extension activity is where the students really come to see how biased the sources they read are, and it provides for a great follow-up discussion in a Socrative seminar fashion for the following class, if there is time.
This lesson would fit well into a larger curriculum of digital literacy because it instructs students to go beyond the surface of the information they are presented on the web, especially from larger news companies. It reminds them that sourcing information is just as important as the evidence or reporting within it. Additionally, it shows a student that just because an article is biased, does not necessarily mean that it is wrong, just prejudiced. Essentially, this is the type of thinking required of historians, especially dealing with the analysis of primary sources written long ago. Being able to determine what somebody will say before they say it is an incredibly useful skill when deciphering fact from opinion, and real from fake news.
The lesson our group created focuses on “fake news," a fairly recent phenomenon that has spread like wildfire across the Internet and other social outlets, especially after the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th U.S. President. The reason we chose this as our focal point is because students tend to accept the information presented to them at face value, especially if it comes from an accredited news outlet. Unfortunately, this becomes problematic for students when determining the reliability and trustworthiness of the evidence in front of them. Therefore, we created a lesson that utilizes three separate news reports, written on the exact same day by well-known news companies, about President Trump’s historic meeting with Kim Jong-un. It is our intention for students to understand how political bias frames the way in which news organizations detail and analyze specific events (especially within the political sphere). Thus, we specifically picked articles from The New York Times, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Fox News because these companies tend to align themselves politically with the left, moderate, and right, respectively.
We decided that this lesson would be most beneficial for 11th and 12th graders who have already been taught and trained how to properly source information, especially given the political nature of the event at the center of this assignment. By this time in their academic career, upperclass high school students should already understand that the author of an article, and the bias that he or she is likely to have (based on their characteristics and context -- known as sourcing) is just as important, or possibly even more, as what is said. This is why the lesson instructs students to individually complete sourcing, contextualization, and close-reading questions for one of the three reports assigned to each group. Younger students, who generally pay less attention to political events, may not have the capacity to do so without being too vague or relying on prior conceptions passed on to them from their parents.
To assist students with sourcing the reports and comprehending the bias held by each of the three news companies, we have provided them with three non-biased outside sources that explain the political partisanship each outlet retains. This will give them better insight as to how the wording and emotion in their article was framed. Having such a perspective will allow them to elaborate on their report’s authenticity and reliability when explaining the information to their fellow group members. Even though the option is left to each individual student, we hope that they come to a consensus that the BBC report was the most unbiased and reliable source, based on their political centrism.
A possible shortcoming of this lesson is that it is structured for students in such a way that leads them to a predictable conclusion. This was done to fit a slotted time within the curriculum. However, if time were not an obstacle, we would have had students complete a similar analysis focused on an event from any president that they desired. Therefore, we offered this option as an extension assignment. Another shortcoming is the recentness in which President Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un. Based on the contemporary nature of this event, it is difficult to distinguish which news outlet actually reported the most accurate information (due to the fact that there has yet to be any updates or closure). This is why we also created an extension assignment that would allow students to decide which of the three articles from today’s lesson were the most accurate in their reporting (although maybe not the most reliable at the time they were written). The extension activity is where the students really come to see how biased the sources they read are, and it provides for a great follow-up discussion in a Socrative seminar fashion for the following class, if there is time.
This lesson would fit well into a larger curriculum of digital literacy because it instructs students to go beyond the surface of the information they are presented on the web, especially from larger news companies. It reminds them that sourcing information is just as important as the evidence or reporting within it. Additionally, it shows a student that just because an article is biased, does not necessarily mean that it is wrong, just prejudiced. Essentially, this is the type of thinking required of historians, especially dealing with the analysis of primary sources written long ago. Being able to determine what somebody will say before they say it is an incredibly useful skill when deciphering fact from opinion, and real from fake news.