Before the 2020 elections, the Pew Research Center surveyed Americans, asking them to classify 10 statements as fact or opinion. Only 26% of U.S. adults who took the survey could correctly classify all five factual statements presented to them, and only 35% correctly identified all five opinion statements as opinion.
The Stanford Graduate School of Education conducted their own research around that same time period but with high school students. They gave students links to online content with false and misleading content. An incredibly high percentage of the U.S. high school students surveyed, 96%, failed to challenge the credibility of the unreliable source.
In an age of increasing misinformation and disinformation, this is very concerning, especially as we enter another election season. To further complicate things, artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and related technology have made it harder than ever to figure out what information we can trust.
Most people agree that we need to address this issue of media literacy in some way, and the most logical approach is through education. By educating, we can empower people, including our students, with the skills and mindsets they need to be media literate digital citizens.
To help teachers with this undertaking, the News Literacy Project offers a comprehensive collection of free resources and tools to help educators learn about news literacy and also teach those skills to their students.
About the News Literacy Project
The News Literacy Project was founded in 2008 by journalist Alan C. Miller as a way “to give middle school and high school educators the tools to teach their students how to separate fact from fiction in the digital age.”
According to their website, the News Literacy Project is a nonpartisan education nonprofit whose mission is “to advance the practice of news literacy throughout American society, creating better informed, more engaged and more empowered individuals — and ultimately a stronger democracy.” They also aim to be the nation’s leading provider of news literacy education.
The project is based on three core beliefs: that news literacy is an essential life skill, that facts matter, and that a free press is a “cornerstone of society.” In fact, they argue that “news literacy is a precondition of a modern democratic society” and that media literacy education should be approached “with the vigor given to ELA and math.”
On the News Literacy Project’s site for Checkology, it is described as “a free e-learning platform with engaging, authoritative lessons on subjects like news media bias, misinformation, conspiratorial thinking and more.” Through the activities available in Checkology, “learners develop the ability to identify credible information, seek out reliable sources, and apply critical thinking skills to separate fact-based content from falsehoods.”
To use this free and interactive lesson platform, teachers set up their account, create a class, add students, and then assign the lessons that they feel best fit their needs. There are many options to choose from, and each lesson choice contains content, engaging videos from subject-matter experts, interactive formative assessments, and pre- and post-tests to track student progress, including access to analytics.
Lessons include topics like “Arguments and Evidence,” “Be Health Informed,” “Evaluating Science-Based Claims,” and “Making Sense of Data.” You’ll even find that the lessons are aligned with national education standards, such as ELA Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, the C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards, and the ISTE Student Standards.
The News Literacy Project’s RumorGuard is focused on the 2024 election and is designed to help voters stay informed and avoid being misled. When you click into this section, you will find a catalog of recently checked misinformation. Each example includes the content, an evaluation of truthfulness, and an analysis of what factors were used to make that determination.
If you want to dive deeper into those evaluation factors, there is a section within RumorGuard that provides resources about the five ways that you can guard yourself against misinformation. These factors revolve around five questions:
- Is it authentic?
- Has it been posted or confirmed by a credible source?
- Is there evidence that proves the claim?
- Is the context accurate?
- Is it based on solid reasoning?
There are resources available to support each of these five key questions. RumorGuard also allows you to sign up for email or text alerts that notify you when new misinformation is circulating and has been evaluated by the site.
Educators can subscribe to the News Literacy Project’s free weekly newsletter, The Sift. It is delivered to your email inbox each week during the school year and includes the latest topics in news literacy, discussion prompts, teaching ideas, classroom guides, and a video series that features professional journalists. If you don’t want to subscribe, you can still browse both the current and previous issues right on the site. It’s a convenient way to get new classroom ideas while staying tuned in with what’s happening in the area of media literacy and misinformation.
If you’re looking for quality resources related to news and information literacy, you can browse the News Literacy Project’s resource library. There, you will find such content as lessons, classroom activities, infographics, posters, quizzes, and instructional support. The content is filterable by grade bands, and you can choose from grades 4–6, 7–9, or 10–12+. When you find something that piques your interest, you can review it, share it, or bookmark it in your favorites.
The NewsLitNation section of the site provides educators with a community of teachers and also includes free professional learning opportunities. In the professional learning section, all lessons are free, on-demand, and self-paced. Through these lessons, you can learn about news literacy and how to teach it. Lessons include interactive video elements and real-world examples. The three foundational lessons are built around “credibility in news and the standards of quality journalism,” “exploring the misinformation landscape,” and “understanding and teaching news media bias.”
Educators who complete these three courses and the accompanying assessments can receive a news literacy educator certificate and a digital badge. More importantly, the experience can help them feel more confident teaching these skills to their students.
If you are looking for resources to help you learn about news literacy and also teach it to your students, the News Literacy Project website is a great place to get started. You can find it at newslit.org. It provides high-quality and ready-to-use resources that are engaging and relevant. And to make it even better, it aims to be free forever.
AVID Connections
This resource connects with the following components of the AVID College and Career Readiness Framework:
- Instruction
- Rigorous Academic Preparedness
- Student Agency
Extend Your Learning
- News Literacy Project (official website)
- Teaching Media Literacy | Get Rolling With Checkology (News Literacy Project via YouTube)