Module 1 Answer Keys

Module 1 Lesson 1 - Know Your Zone

What is the primary purpose of this example of information?

  • John Oliver clip #1 – To Entertain
  • ABC Story on North Korea – To Inform
  • “Nuclear Energy” – To Sell
  • Breitbart – To Persuade

Get in the Zone

  • NPR Clip – News
  • Cartoon – Opinion
  • Drinking water – Advertising
  • InfoWars – Propaganda
  • John Oliver Clip #2 – Entertainment
  • “Common-sense Prescription” – Opinion
  • White House Executive Order – Raw Information
  • Instagram photo – Publicity
  • Border wall video – Advertising
  • BBC News article – News
  • Twitter image – Propaganda
  • CNN “The Past is Prologue” – Advertising
  • Immigration raids story – News
  • Twitter video – Raw Information

There is one section for this lesson that is teacher evaluable. There is a "Solo Sentence" asking, "Have you ever been tricked by a piece of information? Write one sentence describing a time when you initially misjudged the purpose of a piece of information, only to later realize its true purpose."


Module 1 Lesson 2 - What is news?

This lesson focuses on determining newsworthiness using four key criteria. Our subject matter expert, Paul Saltzman, guides students through this process with a series of examples. Students will be asked to rank news stories based on how Timely, Unique, Interesting and Important they feel the stories are. As a result, student answers are subjective but must be supported with reflective written answers to justify their choices. When evaluating these answers, teachers will use their discretion to determine credit for each student. Teachers will be able to see each example, student rankings and their reflective answers in the evaluate section.

Module 1 Lesson 3 - Be the editor

This lesson is a simulation where students are challenged to apply their news judgment skills to narrow a list of more than 20 potential news items down to five top stories, choose the lead (most important) story and the off-lead (second most important), and then explain their selections. As a result, their answers will be subjective but must be supported with a reflective answer.

Teachers will be able to see the stories students ranked (in order), their justification for their choices and have a box for providing students with feedback.