Recommended Readings
- Kahne, J. & Bowyer, B. (2016). Educating for Democracy in a Partisan Age: Confronting the Challenges of Motivated Reasoning and Misinformation. American Educational Research Journal. Advanced PublicationKahne and Bowyer discuss how media literacy education can improve students' ability to discern the veracity of online political information better than political knowledge.
- Teaching in the Post-Truth EraJonathan Gold shares his philosophy for teaching students in the age of disinformation. Building from Dewey's theory of education and democracy, Gold offers a variety of theoretical and practical resources for using critical media literacy in the classroom.
- Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT)A database of articles and lesson plans concerning fake news, news literacy, and evaluation tools.
- The Week in Fact Checking"A newsletter about fact-checking, accountability and verification,
from Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network and the
American Press Institute's Accountability Project." - Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online ReasoningThe Stanford History Education Group determined the abilities of middle and high school as well as college students to distinguish between news and advertisements and evaluate disinformation were "dismaying."
- Did Media Literacy Backfire?Researcher Danah Boyd reevaluates her own stance on media literacy.
Your News Sources and Bias
Vanessa Blevins, a patent attorney, created the above infographic to chart her perspective of media biases. To prompt others to do the same, she created a blank chart (linked below) as well. After filling out the chart with their choice news sources, students can compare their ratings to Media Bias/Fact Check's media evaluations.
- Blank media bias checkVanessa Blevin's blank media bias chart.
- Media bias chartVanessa Blevin's final version of her media bias ratings (pictured above).
News Literacy Projects
- Fact-checking Journalism Project - AmericanPress Insititute"The grant-funded project will support research to improve political fact-checking."
- East StratCom Task ForceEU "Task Force was set up to address Russia's ongoing disinformation campaigns".
Sample Assignments & Syllabuses
- Calling Bullshit SyllabusTwo University of Washington School of Information professors guide students through the ins and outs of calling bullshit. Their syllabus includes the course's reading list, and lectures will be recorded and made available for public use.
- Evaluating news worksheetThe evaluating news worksheet asks students to determine the reliability of two different news sources, and concludes with a prompt to check their own biases against the ratings at the Media Bias/Fact Check website.
- News source analysis exerciseThe news source analysis exercise guides students through evaluating the bias of a single news organization of their choosing.
- Curing Fake News Phobia Lesson PlanShort, one-session lesson plan developed by a librarian for undergraduate students.
Instructional Kits
- FAIR's Media Activism KitFairness & Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Media Activism Kit includes reading lists, tips for discerning the accuracy and fairness of news reporting, a guide for communicating with journalists, and short company profiles of some of the largest media conglomerates.
- Power Searching with GoogleA self-paced course to help you learn the ins and outs of effectively using Google. Includes tutorials on fact-finding as well.
- Facing Ferguson: News Literacy in a Digital AgeUsing the media coverage of Michael Brown's death as a case study, The News Literacy Project and Facing History and Ourselves developed this learning module to help students critical think about how news is developed and reported, how the history of race and racism in the United States impacts the news, and to question their civic responsibilities as news consumers.
- checkology Virtual ClassroomThe News Literacy Project's online learning module for assessing news. There is a cost for full, long-term access to the lesson, though.
- Poynter.NewsUniversityPoynter's news literacy and fact-checking program includes resources for instructors.