Lesson Plan

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May 24, 2023, 4:14 p.m.

Lesson plan: How to short-circuit misinformation before it spreads online

Overview

Misinformation is all over social media — and it’s our job to sort fact from fiction to put a stop to it. That's why we've brought you this "Be MediaWise" curriculum. This video is the final episode of the series and will highlight some of the skills we’ve taught over the year — and give students some activities to practice what they've learned.

Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • Identify red flags that a social media post should be fact-checked.
  • Use the “Three Questions”, lateral reading, a reverse image search, and upstream reading to conduct a fact-check.
  • Define lateral reading, keyword search, reading upstream, deepfake, reverse image search, primary source, and secondary source.

Subjects

Media literacy, social studies, language arts, journalism

Grade Levels

Grades 6-12

Estimated Time

45 minutes

Supplemental Links

Lesson Outline

Untitled design

Preview the lesson vocabulary

Watch the MediaWise Teen-Fact Checking Network (TFCN) video

Answer the discussion questions

Complete the extension activity

Stop misinformation in its tracks!

Standards

  • Common Core ELA CC.8.5.6-8; CC.8.5.9-10.A; CC.8.5.11-12.A
    • Citing informational text
  • College, Career, and Civic Life (C3)—D3.1.6-8
    • Gather relevant information from multiple sources while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection.

These lessons were developed by PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs in partnership with MediaWise and the Teen Fact-Checking Network, which are part of the Poynter Institute . This partnership has been made possible with support from Google.

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Illustrations by Annamaria Ward