Now that you have learned to assess the reliability of a source, and to analyze & evaluate various arguments presented in a source, we are going to combine both skills and apply them to various real-life debates on controversial issues. You will need to consider all the information you can to evaluate the information presented in the following assignments:
Can you determine whether a given source is reliable?
Hint: Try to corroborate the information...
A given source might be good... or it might be bad... at the same time!
On Twitter (or facebook) people may post a legitimate news article, only to misrepresent what that article is really saying. Can you tell when this is happening?
Videos can be remarkably persuasive. In spite of that, can you tell when a video contains less-than-trustworthy information?
Can you evaluate the truth of a claim by using an internet search?
Robert Reich is a famous economist and U.C. Berkeley Professor - but do you trust what he has to say?
Back to basics: can you determine the reliability of a given source?
The above resources are based on the Stanford History Education Group's Civic Online Reasoning project. If you are a teacher, you can click here to download the original lessons plus the rubrics for each activity; a SHEG account is free to sign-up, and all the lessons are free as well.