Goals for fake news/media literacy instruction
- Students should be following news. Keep abreast of current events nationally and world wide. Students cannot detect fake news if they have little experience with news coverage in general. It takes experience with the genre to detect when the truth is being bent.
- In addition to the broadcasts listed below, you can arrange for your students to get digital access to the daily Los Angeles Times. Then, you can use articles found in the Times for class discussion and assignments.
Digital access to the New York Times:
Use the following path to activate a NYT subscription with your library card:
- Go to lapl.org
- On the home page, click on "Collections and Resources."
- Then select "Research and Homework."
- Select "Newspapers" from the resources menu and check whether you are accessing from inside the LAPL or from your home/office.
- Under the browse results, click on the letter "N."
- Select "New York Times Digital" and follow the prompts for access.
- Students can access the New York Times with their own library cards.
- Developing a critical mind. Look at material and question legitimacy.
- Habit of Mind: Metacognition--thinking about thinking.
- Awareness of personal confirmation bias and experiencing cognitive dissonance.
- Develop analytical skills to filter real from false.
- Recognize when there is insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion.
- Determine agenda/bias of news source.
- Determine elements of persuasion.
- Question sources.
- Facts vs opinion.
- Listen dispassionately. Separate emotion from argument.
- "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away."
- Be receptive to adapting to new information.
- Translate what they do intuitively in their academic process to the process of evaluating news.