Standards

Knowing how to evaluate news and news sources is a life skill. The teaching of news evaluation and media literacy is aligned to several different sets of standards.

Italy introduced a country-wide high school media literacy program October 2017.

Relevant Standards:

Common Core State Standards

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.8 Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, distinguishing claims that are supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not. [emphasis added]
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.8 Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient to support the claims. [emphasis added]
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; recognize when irrelevant evidence is introduced. [emphasis added]
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning. [emphasis added]
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Model School Library Standards (California)

MSLS.GRADES.9-12.2 Students evaluate information.
- MSLS.GRADES.9-12.2.2 Assess the comprehensiveness, currency, credibility, authority, and accuracy of resources:
  - 2.2a Verify the authenticity of primary and secondary source information found online.
  - 2.2c Analyze media for purpose, message, accuracy, bias, and intended audience.
  - 2.2d Determine whether resources are designed to persuade, educate, inform, or sell.
- MSLS.GRADES.9-12.2.3 Consider the need for additional information:
  - 2.3a Determine and use strategies for revising, improving, and updating knowledge of a subject.
MSLS.GRADES.9-12.3.2 Draw conclusions and make informed decisions:
- MSLS.GRADES.9-12.3.2a Analyze information from multiple sources and identify complexities, discrepancies, and different perspectives of sources.
- MSLS.GRADES.9-12.3.3 Use information and technology creatively to answer a question, solve a problem, or enrich understanding:
  - 3.3a Explain how meaning is conveyed in image and sound and recognize that many media messages are constructed to generate profit, influence viewers, or both.
  - 3.3b Analyze design elements of various kinds of media productions and identify media messages that have embedded points of view.
  - 3.3g Be aware of the impact of personal bias when interpreting information.
  - 3.3h Draw clear and appropriate conclusions supported by evidence and examples.
  - 3.3j Construct and test hypotheses; collect, evaluate, and employ information from multiple primary and secondary sources....
MSLS.GRADES.9-12.4 Students integrate information literacy skills into all areas of learning.
- MSLS.GRADES.9-12.4.1 Read widely and use various media for information, personal interest, and lifelong learning:
  - MSLS.GRADES.9-12.4.1b Demonstrate competence and self-motivation in reading, listening, and viewing information.
  - MSLS.GRADES.9-12.4.1d Demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning.
- MSLS.GRADES.9-12.4.2a Locate information independently to satisfy curiosity.
- MSLS.GRADES.9-12.4.2c Demonstrate and advocate legal and ethical behavior among peers, family members, and their communities when using information resources and technology.
MSLS.GRADES.9-12.4.3b Monitor one’s own progress in seeking and handling information, and adapt as necessary.

International Society of Technology in Education

ITSE 3a: Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their intellectual or creative pursuits.
ITSE 3b: Students evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information, media, data or other resources.
ISE 3c: Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.
ITSE 3d: Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.
ITSE 7d: Students explore local and global issues and use collaborative technologies to work with others to investigate solutions.

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)- – Science and Engineering Practices

Practice 1 Asking Questions and Defining Problems: Students at any grade level should be able to ask questions of each other about the texts they read, the features of the phenomena they observe, and the conclusions they draw from their models or scientific investigations. (NRC Framework 2012, p. 56)
Practice 2 Developing and Using Models: Modeling can begin in the earliest grades, with students’ models progressing from concrete “pictures” and/or physical scale models (e.g., a toy car) to more abstract representations of relevant relationships in later grades, such as a diagram representing forces on a particular object in a system. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 58)
Practice 3 Planning and Carrying Out Investigations: Students should have opportunities to plan and carry out several different kinds of investigations during their K-12 years. At all levels, they should engage in investigations that range from those structured by the teacher—in order to expose an issue or question that they would be unlikely to explore on their own (e.g., measuring specific properties of materials)— to those that emerge from students’ own questions. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 61)
Practice 4 Analyzing and Interpreting Data: Once collected, data must be presented in a form that can reveal any patterns and relationships and that allows results to be communicated to others. Because raw data as such have little meaning, a major practice of scientists is to organize and interpret data through tabulating, graphing, or statistical analysis. Such analysis can bring out the meaning of data—and their relevance—so that they may be used as evidence. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 61-62)
Practice 5 Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking: Although there are differences in how mathematics and computational thinking are applied in science and in engineering, mathematics often brings these two fields together by enabling engineers to apply the mathematical form of scientific theories and by enabling scientists to use powerful information technologies designed by engineers. Both kinds of professionals can thereby accomplish investigations and analyses and build complex models, which might otherwise be out of the question. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 65)
Practice 6 Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions: The goal of science is to construct explanations for the causes of phenomena. Students are expected to construct their own explanations, as well as apply standard explanations they learn about from their teachers or reading. The Framework states the following about explanation: “The goal of science is the construction of theories that provide explanatory accounts of the world. A theory becomes accepted when it has multiple lines of empirical evidence and greater explanatory power of phenomena than previous theories.”(NRC Framework, 2012, p. 52)
Practice 7 Engaging in Argument from Evidence: The study of science and engineering should produce a sense of the process of argument necessary for advancing and defending a new idea or an explanation of a phenomenon and the norms for conducting such arguments. In that spirit, students should argue for the explanations they construct, defend their interpretations of the associated data, and advocate for the designs they propose. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 73)
Practice 8 Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information Any education in science and engineering needs to develop students’ ability to read and produce domain-specific text. As such, every science or engineering lesson is in part a language lesson, particularly reading and producing the genres of texts that are intrinsic to science and engineering. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 76)