Checking your sources, evaluating and verifying them
Part of JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission’s Constitution Day lessons and activity package:
4. LESSON PLAN: Quick hits: Checking your sources, evaluating and verifying them
In this lesson, students will complete a quick exercise in which they attempt to check a publication’s sources, evaluating and verifying them.
The discussion will lead toward the development of a process for a staff manual.
Summative evaluation tool: Student created product
Primary Common Core: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.2
Secondary Common Core Standard(s) Addressed: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.3
21st Century Skills Incorporated: Critical thinking, collaboration
Supplies, Technology, Other Materials Needed: Handouts, software for desktop publishing (online or computer installed), examples of magazines, yearbooks and newspapers
Length of the Lesson: 45 minutes
Evaluation tools:
Appropriate for Grades: 9-12
Created by: John Bowen, MJE
Brief description of lesson:
Students will access the following article online, reading it, evaluating the information and sources and attempting to verify the information.
Article: Government caught paying protesters after Trayvon Martin shooting to create racial division
http://intellihub.com/2013/07/17/government-caught-paying-protesters-after-trayvon-martin-shooting-to-create-racial-division/
Lesson details:
Individually, give students the article and have them read and begin to evaluate the information and the sources.
Once they have done that, have them see if they can verify the information. That process should lead students to critique not only the information but also the sources and the websites.
As they try to verify the information, have them keep track of the types of sources, the links and their credibility.
The can also consider questions like these:
If they were going to publish this information, what would they do to:
• ensure they were accurate and had reported verified, reliable information
• accept responsibility for reporting the information
• being accountable to their audience
What should a journalist do if/when s/he finds information:
– Provably false
– Non verifiable
– Non existant or misapplied sources
What additional sources might they use to help them evaluate this story and its information?
What ethical considerations should they take if they were to publish the information
How does this exercise help them establish a process for reporting their stories, one they can include in their staff manual
Possible additional exercise: Find a story they feel has information that should be evaluated and verified and do the evaluation.
Resource:
The good, the bad and the ugly
http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html
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Reporting sharks in the subway: Evaluating the credibility factor
Part of JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission’s Constitution Day lessons and activity package:
5. Lesson plan: Reporting sharks in the subway: evaluating the credibility factor
In this lesson, students will examine several leads on a common topic and evaluate the use of sources, facts and the value of the news itself.
Summative evaluation tool: Class discussion
Primary Common Core: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.7
Secondary Common Core Standard(s) Addressed: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.11-12.3
21st Century Skills Incorporated: Critical thinking, communication, information media skills
Supplies, Technology, Other Materials Needed: Internet
Length of the Lesson: 50 minutes
Evaluation tools: Application of skills, development of guidelines
Appropriate for Grades: 9-12
Created by: John Bowen, MJE
Brief description of lesson: Students will discuss various leads on a recent, unusual topic in terms of strength of leads, attribution, type of sources, news value and ethics.
Lesson details:
Question: Given several leads, including a lighter approach and a more serious one, which of the leads below, on the same subject, is more acceptable, and why.
For instance:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/07/us/new-york-subway-shark/index.html?iref=allsearch
Compare that to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/nyregion/after-cries-of-shark-riders-scurry-for-photos.html?hp&_r=1& (Check out this NYT piece, “Not Native to N Train, a Shark Hitches a Ride” )
Additional coverage:
• Subway shark found on New York Train (ABC)
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/08/subway-shark-found-on-new-york-train/
• Dead shark found on NYC subway (update)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/dead-shark-subway_n_3719391.html
• Stand clear of the closing jaws: Shark found on NYC subway
http://www.today.com/news/stand-clear-closing-jaws-shark-found-nyc-subway-6C10875396
• The Discovery Channel is really upset about that dead shark on a New York subway
http://www.businessinsider.com/discovery-reacts-to-shark-on-nyc-subway-2013-8
• There was a dead shark on the New York subway this morning
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/there-was-dead-shark-new-york-subway-morning/68076/
• Dead shark found on New York City subway
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-08-07/news/sns-rt-us-subway-shark-20130807_1_shark-week-dead-shark-subway
• Sources say they know exactly where that subway shark came from
http://gothamist.com/2013/08/08/sources_dead_shark_on_subway_came_fr.php#photo-
Compare and contrast the first two leads. Which works best for you, and why? Then examine the others. What do they add – or omit – and what are their strengths or weaknesses?
Which story do you prefer, and why? Is that the best way to tell the story? What should the audiences walk away with/
And now, the hidden agenda: Discuss attribution with students. Note that both pieces mention the shark “posing” with soda cans and Metro cards.
The Times attributes or “verifies” this with mentioning photos posted on the Gothamist website
(http://www.weather.com/video/shark-found-on-ny-subway-38269 ) while CNN gives no such attribution for the “fact.”
And, by the way, Shark Week was just to begin.
Is the story even news?
What ethical issues are raised?
Additional work (and maybe additional time)
Based on the exercise, discuss (and maybe even develop) guidelines for:
• Fitting leads to the content of stories
• Identifying credible sources
• Asking what type questions to get an accurate, complete, thorough and coherent story?
• Developing ethical standards for reporting stories
Potential ethical issues: the reporter contacted the Discovery Channel for a quote, after conspiracy theories surfaced that it was a marketing ploy.
The quotes themselves are lovely little jewels, which makes one wonder about the conversation and questions the reporter posed in order to get these responses. And how did he find the people on the train who saw the shark
Check out the caption on the photo, too. Does it give the audience enough information?
(Thanks to Ellen Austin and Tracy Anne Sena for ideas and the heads up to this great mini-lesson and discussion starter)
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Effective and complete use of sources
Part of JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission’s Constitution Day lessons and activity package:
2. EFFECTIVE AND COMPLETE USE OF SOURCES
Judges of all types of scholastic media platforms report a definite increase in the lack of sources – and not just appropriate ones. These lessons can help students understand the importance of identifying sources and how to assure their audiences that their stories have the right sources – people or other resources.
Summative evaluation tool: Student task performance and created product
Primary Common Core: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.2
Secondary Common Core Standard(s) Addressed: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.2e
21st Century Skills Incorporated: Communication and critical thinking
Supplies, Technology, Other Materials Needed: Handouts, online resources and computers
Length of the Lesson: 90 minutes (2 class periods)
Evaluation tools: In-class and homework assignments
Appropriate for Grades: 9-12
Created by: John Bowen, MJE
Brief description of lesson:
Students will critique existing stories for use of appropriate and relevant sources and then apply what they learned to an existing story of their own or a future assignment for their student media.
Teachers may want to use a coaching writing model for this activity, which an explanation can be found at: http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/newsgathering-storytelling/chip-on-your-shoulder/11214/the-coaching-way/
Read MoreEvaluating the use of unnamed sources
Part of JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission’s Constitution Day lessons and activity package:
1. Lesson: THE USE OF ANONYMOUS SOURCES
For any journalist, the use of anonymous sources creates a true predicament—one in which the newspaper’s credibility is on the line, and the reporter takes full responsibility for the authenticity and accuracy of whatever the anonymous source says.
This is a difficult and precarious situation to be in, and it is one all student publications should enter knowing the possibilities.
Primary Common Core: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.7
Secondary Common Core Standard(s) Addressed: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.8
21st Century Skills Incorporated: Communication, collaboration critical thinking
Supplies, Technology, Other Materials Needed: Handouts, online resources, computers and recording tools
Length of the Lesson: 125 minutes (3 class periods)
Evaluation tools: Student created products and application
Appropriate for Grades: 9-12
Created by: John Bowen, MJE
Brief description of lesson:
Students will examine the positive and negative potential in the use of anonymous sources, participate in activities examining the roles of anonymous sources and develop policies to guide their future use in local student media.
Read MoreWhat to look forward to this fall
With the beginning of another new year, we thought it important to let you know what the Scholastic Press Rights Commission has been working on to better meet your legal and ethical needs.
• Our third set of Constitution Day lessons will be available around the first week of September on this site.
• Also available early in September will be the first of weekly blogs on a range of legal and ethical issues such as using FOIA records, news literacy, journalism education and prior review.
• Members of the commission worked with Quill and Scroll to update the Principal’s Guide, which will be available online as well as in print. Date to be announced. To support teachers in helping their administrators with the principal’s Guide, check out Talking Points prepared by commission member Lori Keekley.
• The Tinker Tour announced its itinerary. Follow along here .
• Our second set of reporting called Making a Difference, identifying and evaluating articles that created change in their communities, will also be available on this site later this fall.
• Need legal or ethical advice? Facing prior review? Use the commission’s Panic Button, which will put you in contact with members of the commission.
We have a wide range of information and activities planned to share with you this fall, so stay tuned. In the meantime, let us know your needs; what you would like to know, or questions you have, about law and ethics.
In our next blog, we will share where to find key legal and ethical information, and lesson plans, available from the commission.
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