In an effort to provide students with an open space to learn about and discuss recent national concerns over “fake news,” the library offered four sessions of the workshop “Keepin’ It Real: Tips & Strategies for Evaluating Fake News” during a campus-wide Inauguration Teach-In on Friday, January 20, 2017. During this session, students had the opportunity to talk about how misleading news sources (encompassing misinformation, disinformation, click-bait, propaganda, etc.) have affected their views on civil discourse, specifically relating to the recent U.S. presidential election. By the end of the session, we hope students became more confident in their ability to use critical thinking skills to judge the reliability of news reports, whether they come via print, television or the internet.

Students will generate a well-reasoned conclusion in a two-page paper in which they identify a "good" Internet source and a "bad" Internet source, using IL source evaluation terminology (outlined in CRAAP) to guide their writing.

They will then explain why the good source should be used to investigate the chosen topic, and why the bad source should not be used in their investigation.

Students will be expected to find evidence to investigate a pseudoscientific claim or conspiracy theory. For their graded assignment, they will be submitting a two-page paper to their Chemistry professor (the lead professor for this class in which I’m embedding). In their paper, they make a case that either supports the claim or rejects it. They will be expected to use both library and credible online sources for support.

Students will be exposed to various entry points of a sustainability topic in various formats. They will take notes as they experience those expressions on the Elements of Thought evidenced throughout. This in-class, two-part lesson includes an independent guided activity and a Think-Pair-Share activity for further reflection on source/ claimant evaluation.

Prior to this lesson, instructor will have chosen a topic relevant to their subject area or course content – Possible examples: food deserts, clean water in US, bee colony collapse.

Instructor will also have selected (commenting on this topic directly):
• One short-form video product (I.e. TED Talk, video essay, documentary clip, recorded speech, or other topical video informational product)
• One published essay, opinion editorial, or commentary
• One informative (unbiased) article or reference entry.
The duration of the in-class activities for this lesson is approximately 60-75 minutes. Length and difficulty of content should be considered when selecting the examples.

In small groups students give a presentation examining how the popular media reports scientific findings.

As people rely more and more on social media to get their news, the filter bubble becomes increasingly problematic. In this workshop, students learn how to evaluate whether a news site is reliable. This group activity takes about 30 minutes and can be used for many different audiences by adjusting the examples used.

There is a large body of research on corporate ownership and control of traditional media, such as print, television, and radio. Comparatively, research about corporate control of what we see online is underdeveloped, yet search engines are often the first place students uncritically look for research as opposed to the library website, catalogs, and discovery services. Dr. Safiya Noble shows that Google image searches for black women often perpetuate and reinforce dominant narratives involving racism and misogyny. As Google is often seen as neutral, such search results are presented as “natural,” the way things are, when in fact they are the products of capitalism, hegemonic patriarchy, and white supremacy. Interrogating results such as these is one goal of this lesson plan, along with getting students to think critically about, to problematize, the everyday tools used in the research process and to explore links between capitalism and racism, misogyny, and homophobia.

This assignment was created for an introductory nutrition course for health related science majors and nonmajors to meet the Information Literacy Flag criteria for the core standards at Loyola Marymount University. The assignment focuses on the evaluation of a primary and secondary source on a specific topic to assess the similarities and differences between the sources of information. The primary goal of the assignment is for a pair of students to select a current popular press article that references a recent scientific journal article. The students then procure a copy of the scientific journal article. Using a formatted questionnaire, the students evaluate characteristics and information from the popular press article and then characteristics and information from the journal article, then compare and contrast the two information sources.

Using ProQuest SIRS Issues Researcher or similar database, groups of students work together to find and read four informative magazine articles representing a variety of opinions on a topic. For each magazine article they write an MLA citation. In an oral presentation of less than three minutes per group, they summarize the controversy without giving their own opinions and explain why they chose the four articles. Students are told to be prepared to answer questions about their topic and why they selected each of the four articles. Students are given basic instruction on writing an MLA citation and using a database.

A brief two page handout on how to read abstracts for scholarly journals for lower division undergraduates in particular. Examples include one from social sciences and one from humanities.