A toolkit with various instructional materials to teach media and news literacy. Includes an online activity "Fairness and Blanace" where students watch a short video on journalistic standards and answer discussion questions. Then, students can take one or both interactive tutorials on "Lateral Reading" with a focus on fact-checking and/or "Evaluating Information" based on an information need.

In this hands on activity, students will find and compare/contrast news stories on a single current event/topical discussion to learn the importance of lateral reading and understand how bias can influence information production. 

Background information, assignment, and reflection on analyzing information received from the news.

This class outline is based on the Four Moves and a Habit from Mike Caufield's Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers.
It was designed for a first year writing class for students in an interdisciplinary STEM major. For their main class assignment, they were investigating a "fact" within their chosen scientific field, and tracing it to its origin. In addition to our in-class work they were also assigned to read:

As part of a larger news evaluation campaign, Sara Davidson Squibb and colleagues (Lindsay Davis, Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco and Elizabeth Salmon) created a jigsaw lesson to use with introductory writing courses. Students were asked to evaluate an article’s content, tone, and purpose in a large group before they discussed the article in the context of two other articles on the same topic in a smaller group. After these group discussions, the library instructor revealed the source of each news article and highlighted resources and strategies for learning more about news sources.