Downloadable Lesson Documents

• Student Handout
• Teacher Tips
• Extension Activity
• Slide Deck and Teacher Guide

Key vocabulary

• Disinformation : False information created and shared to purposefully cause harm.
  • A Russian “troll” posts about ballots thrown out.
• Misinformation : False information shared by people who are not aware that it is false. In fact, most times they post it with the intention to help.
  • Your aunt posts about a false claim about an eagle snatching a toddler at the park.
• Motivation — The reason someone shares false or incomplete information.
• Reverse Image Search—searching the internet with an image to find out other content it is associated with and its original source and context.

Before You Watch

Think-Pair-Share these questions:

1. Why do people unintentionally share false information?
2. Why would someone want to intentionally share false information?
3. Why do images make even an outrageous claim seem more believable?
4. Describe a time you may have shared misinformation because of an image or video.

While You Watch

Preview the following questions. Then answer them while you watch the MediaWise Teen-Fact Checking Network (TFCN) video. According to the video…

1. What are red flags about the credibility of the cats helping Ukrainian snipers tweet?
2. What did a reverse image search discover about when the original photo was posted online?
3. Circle the phrase used for the Internet keyword search?
   “Cats helping snipers” — “Mikael the panther of Kharkiv” — “Ukraine war cats”
4. Why is Liam Collins a reputable source in AFP’s article?

After You Watch

1. Why is it important not to share even humorous, inspiring, or seemingly harmless social media posts that include misinformation?
2. What makes an effective keyword search to find credible information online?
3. Why is it important to find the original source of an image used in a social media post?

Background Reading

• Science Direct Study (2021) on the effect of photographs on the likeliness of liking or sharing on social media
• Applied Cognitive Psychology (2007) study on how photographs distorts the memory of the news
• Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence
• Power of photos in spreading misinformation
• Fact check of votes thrown in ditch

About The Next Lesson

Debunking Denver airport conspiracies: Students learn how to use lateral reading and the Stanford History Education Group’s “Three Questions” - Who is behind the information? What is the evidence? What do other sources say? - to decode a conspiracy theory about the Denver airport.

Standards

Common Core ELA
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.8.3 Delineate a speaker’s argument and specific claims, evaluating the soundness of the reasoning and relevance and sufficiency of the evidence and identifying when irrelevant evidence is introduced.

College, Career, and Civic Framework (C3)
D3.1.9-12 Gather relevant information from multiple sources representing a wide range of views while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection.

Common Core History and Social Studies
9-10.RH.1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.

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.