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Interactive Voter Guide

Lesson 3: Finding Credible News on Social Media

This lesson aims to equip students with skills to identify credible information online, evaluate news sources on social media and beyond, and build a balanced media diet.

The second part of this media literacy section could take up to 1-2 days as well. These two lessons focus on finding credible news on social media.
We recommend using these two lessons from Common Sense Media together to teach about the skills of finding credible news on social media.

Review Key Terms

Credibility, Misinformation, Corroboration

Whole Class Instruction

FINDING CREDIBLE NEWS (three activities totaling 45 minutes)

This lesson helps students evaluate the credibility of what they are reading online.

IS BREAKING NEWS BROKEN ON SOCIAL MEDIA? (two activities totaling 30 minutes)

When something trends on social media, it’s easy for users to draw immediate conclusions. Are those always the right ones? These activities help students think before they share.

Another very good, interactive lesson comes from the News Literacy Project and their Checkology curriculum, which is available for free with a login.

PRACTICING QUALITY JOURNALISM (40 minutes) – This lesson helps teach the standards of quality journalism that trustworthy news sources abide by. Students will play the role of a reporter in a game-like simulation of a breaking news event.

Thank you to our partners at the Pitt Disinformation Lab for their consultation on the collection of these resources.