Teaching Media Literacy with Social Media News: Practical Techniques for Middle and High School Classrooms

Featuring tools, activities, and insightful stories from a CIA analyst and instructor with 30+ years’ of experience, this practical and engaging book supports busy educators to teach the lifelong skills of news and media literacy to their students. Based on existing curriculum and teaching standards, this guidebook shows how social studies and English language arts (ELA) teachers can build students’ confidence with social media evaluation skills, which are critical to engaging in civic discourse and building a stronger democracy.In Part 1, Whitehurst gives an overview of the media evaluation techniques based on those you would learn as a CIA analyst, including understanding how our biases and mindset make us vulnerable to disinformation, learning how media tries to persuade us, checking facts, and spotting disinformation.Part 2 dives deeper by showing teachers how learners can check if an argument on social media is valid, and how fallacies and manipulation tactics in online arguments