DESE Social Studies Standards Addressed:

Guiding Principle 8 

An effective history and social science education incorporates the study of current events and news/media literacy. When teaching history and social science, teachers have a unique responsibility to help students consider events – including current events – in a broad historical, geographical, social, or economic context. The Framework’s News/Media Literacy standards for grade 8 and high school are designed to help students take a critical stance toward what they read, hear, and view in newspapers and on websites, television, and social media. Applying these standards, students learn to evaluate information, question and verify its source, distinguish fact from inference, and reasoned judgment supported by evidence from varying degrees of bias. 

Connections to Middle and High School History and Social Science 

Students were introduced to concepts of media literacy in the grade 8 civics class. These high school standards are designed to inspire reflection on how current events are reported and to give students ways of determining the purpose, point of view, and accuracy of the reports they see, hear, and view on social media, online, and in print.