Fake News

K-2 Resources

• Good Vs. Evil: Exploring Children's Animation
• Teach Your Kids to Detect Fake News and Photos - National Geographic. These days it can be challenging to tell fact from fiction—especially for kids. But by helping children distinguish between what’s real and what’s fake, you can teach them how to think for themselves, as well as gain a better understanding of the world. Check out some fun activities that’ll help your kids develop a knack for finding the facts.

3-5 Resources

• Impacts and Influences of Social Media - Lesson plans - 4-6th grade. This Junior Division Media Unit is designed to assist teachers in delivering a program that will help students develop their Critical Literacy skills.
• Reality Check Game - These fast, fun and engaging activities provide teens and adults with the opportunity to test their skills and learn new authentication techniques.
• Critical Evaluation Survey - PDF printout and activity.
• Evaluating Website - Video
• Website Evaluation Lessons
• Teach Your Kids to Detect Fake News and Photos - National Geographic. These days it can be challenging to tell fact from fiction—especially for kids. But by helping children distinguish between what’s real and what’s fake, you can teach them how to think for themselves, as well as gain a better understanding of the world. Check out some fun activities that’ll help your kids develop a knack for finding the facts.
• 7 Tips for Teaching Readers How to Recognize Bias - Recognizing bias can be a tricky skill, even for grown-ups. One 2016 study found that 82 percent of middle school students couldn’t distinguish between a news story and one labeled as sponsored content.
• Why is Fake News So Effective? This interactive lesson, based on the series Breaking Views, frames the controversial issues of fake news and trust in the media with the historical context of yellow journalism and sensationalist reporting

6-8 Resources

• Fake News - Lesson Plan - This lesson plan approaches fake news from a wide variety of angles and will likely take multiple days of focus to complete.
• Evaluating Sources in a “Post-Truth” World. The New York Times jam-packs this article with link after link to stories, examples, and lessons regarding fake news. The main components of this series of lessons helps students consider why fake news is a problem, look at various forms of fake news, follow an example to learn how easily fake news spreads, consider fake news’ impacts on democracy, and gain some tips on how to properly evaluate sources of information.
• How to Teach Your Students About Fake News - 50 minute Lesson Plan by PBS. This lesson gives students media literacy skills they need to navigate the media, including how to spot fake news.
• Fake News Bellringer Activities - 8-15 minute mini-lessons.
• Reality Check Game - These fast, fun and engaging activities provide teens and adults with the opportunity to test their skills and learn new authentication techniques.
• 7 Tips for Teaching Readers How to Recognize Bias - Recognizing bias can be a tricky skill, even for grown-ups. One 2016 study found that 82 percent of middle school students couldn’t distinguish between a news story and one labeled as sponsored content.
• Fact Vs. Fiction - PBS News Hour: Sometimes news is labeled as “fake” because the reader dislikes it or it contradicts their beliefs. However, fake news is when the news information as well as the news organization itself may intentionally be completely fabricated. Educators and media literacy advocates are working in the classroom to help students discern fact from fiction in news sources.

9-12 Resources

• Fake News - Lesson Plan - This lesson plan approaches fake news from a wide variety of angles and will likely take multiple days of focus to complete.
• Hoax or No Hoax: Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation - ReadWriteThink lesson. Students will: Use research-based comprehension strategies to read and evaluate websites; Practice analysis by comparing hoax and real websites and identifying false or misleading information; Apply what they have learned about hoaxes by creating an outline of their own hoax website and evaluating the outlines of their peers
• Evaluating Sources in a “Post-Truth” World. The New York Times jam-packs this article with link after link to stories, examples, and lessons regarding fake news. The main components of this series of lessons helps students consider why fake news is a problem, look at various forms of fake news, follow an example to learn how easily fake news spreads, consider fake news’ impacts on democracy, and gain some tips on how to properly evaluate sources of information.
• Checklist for Evaluating Web Resources -
• 7 Tips for Teaching Readers How to Recognize Bias - Recognizing bias can be a tricky skill, even for grown-ups. One 2016 study found that 82 percent of middle school students couldn’t distinguish between a news story and one labeled as sponsored content.
• Bias Lesson - This lesson introduces students to the concept of bias or slant, in newspapers and in television newscasts.
• Fact Vs. Fiction - PBS News Hour: Sometimes news is labeled as “fake” because the reader dislikes it or it contradicts their beliefs. However, fake news is when the news information as well as the news organization itself may intentionally be completely fabricated. Educators and media literacy advocates are working in the classroom to help students discern fact from fiction in news sources.