Information Literacy Work

The last several weeks of Literacy Studies classes have been filled with lessons and activities related to information literacy and evaluating sources. Much of the work was based on the book Fact vs. Fiction: Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in the Age of Fake News by Jennifer LaGarde and Darren Hudgins.

To begin our work, students picked apart the pieces of the story of Frida, a young girl apparently trapped in a collapsed elementary school in Mexico City after an earthquake. The story, as retold in Fact vs. Fiction, recounted the hours after the earthquake when rescuers claimed to have seen and heard from the trapped girl. World-wide coverage of the story ensued, and #Frida trended on Twitter. In the end, there was no trapped girl. The story illustrates how a story can gain traction--even a story that isn't true.

Student participated in a sorting activity that included elements from the story. Using categories from Fact vs. Fiction, students chose where to place story elements, and then defended their choices during discussion. Categories included: famous names and places, a few facts, legitimate news information, eye witnesses, and emotional investment or connection.

Next, students examined examples of "fake news," which we learn is likely one of four kinds of stories:

    1) propaganda

    2) disinformation

    3) conspiracy theory

    4) click bait

After discussing what we already knew, we looked at specific examples of each, then participated in a Four Corners activity when looking at different examples. Once students made their choices, they explained why they made the choices they did.

Once students had specific vocabulary for "fake news," it was time to evaluate online sources, as that's where students--and indeed, many of us--primarily get our information. Together we looked at a checklist of things to do and look for when examining websites.

We applied the checklist to a site together--The Jackalope Conspiracy--and gathered "the evidence" to make a decision about the site: Is it propaganda, disinformation, conspiracy theory, or click bait?

Students also worked independently (or with a partner) to evaluate an assigned website from the list above. Not every site on the list was disinformation; some were accurate websites. Students worked through their checklists and read laterally to try to confirm the information on the sites they were evaluating.

Students' final activity was to visit snopes.com to see how it can be used as another tool in website and information evaluation and fact checking.

Using tools at snopes.com, students search for information provided to them, and they also had time to search for an item of their own interest to determine the accuracy of the story and information. 

Finally, students completed a quick survey to provide some feedback regarding their understanding of information literacy and source evaluation before we began our work compared to their knowledge of these things after our activities and reading. The good news? After participating in lessons and activities, students reported a nearly 20% increase in their confidence related to evaluation skills when looking at information online.

7th Grade Podcast Work

With one year of podcast work under their belts (see previous podcast posts), seventh graders were ready to move ahead with some different podcast activities.

Photo by Jonathan Velasquez on Unsplash

At the end of their podcast work as sixth graders, students completed a reflection that provided some important information to consider moving forward with podcast work. Overwhelmingly, 84% of all students said they "liked" or "really liked" the podcast unit, and 93% wanted to do more with podcasts in school. The two areas that students said needed improvement were time and choice; in their written responses, students said they wanted to have more time to listen to podcasts in class, and they wanted to be able to choose the podcasts to listen to.

So, in planning and revising and creating a new seventh grade podcast unit, students got what they asked for: time and choice.

The updated lesson for seventh graders became a digital notebook activity with background graphic organizer work to help shape their review writing. Even before that work began, students used Jamboard to include notes about things they recalled about our podcast work from the previous year. Many, many thanks to our school AEA technology consultant Cathy Hines who developed the digital notebook and graphic organizer! 

Before setting to work individually, we took two class days to listen to a podcast together and work through a graphic organizer example. Students listened to the first episode of "Six Minutes," then as a group filled in the graphic organizer. 

“Six Minutes.” Gen-Z Media, 5 Feb. 2021, gzmshows.com/shows/listing/six-minutes/.

The items included relate directly to the Iowa speaking and listening standards, as well as the AASL Learner standards.

The students' graphic organizer work will transfer directly to their digital notebooks that include a cover or title page for their podcasts and a review page.

Addressing students' request for more time to listen to podcasts was only a matter of structuring the lessons over plenty of calendar days. The request for more choice, however, was a little more tricky. After many conversations with Cathy and with the students, they were able to refer to a recommendations list as well as use Google Podcasts.

Screenshot of some of the podcast recommendations for students

Over the course of several class days, then, students had the opportunity to choose a podcast based on their interests, listen to it, and complete the Slides work. While many chose to continue to listen to more episodes of "Six Minutes," others returned to "The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel," which reflected their interest in last year's podcast work. With access to the Google Podcast search engine, students were also able to listen to podcasts about hunting and fishing, football and hockey, and dogs and cheerleading!

Students' work isn't quite finished; they'll be sharing out their work and reflecting again on the revising of the podcast unit. Stay tuned for a future follow-up post!

Book Share/Talk HyperDoc

 Literacy Studies students recently completed their work in a HyperDoc taken from cubeforteachers.com.

This book share/talk document encourages students to think beyond plot and summary and instead consider their own thinking as they read and connect their reading to broader topics. (You can grab the template HERE.) Students also create a hyperlink for the image associated with their book of choice. While they used the Unsplash add-on to insert copyright-free images in a recent Slides project, students this time used Pixabay Free Images add-on in the HyperDoc.

To encourage collaboration in the HyperDoc, all grade-level students on a given class day shared their work in a single document. Before we even began inserting book cover and Pixabay images, classes engaged in discussions about good digital citizenship when multiple users share a document. We even had the chance to see how seemingly innocent clicking around in a Google Doc can have an impact; once, all of the directions were inadvertently deleted, and in another class, a student accidentally deleted an entire column in the table. :) Everything a teachable moment and retrievable and fixable! :)

Students' work occurred over 3 days' time: one day to introduce the HyperDoc, install the Pixabay add-on, and begin filling in individual rows of boxes; one day to complete your individual row, including inserting the hyperlink and commenting on others' work; and, a final day to wrap-up anything not yet completed.

The students' choices of websites to hyperlink to their images was pleasantly surprising! While some chose to include links to official authors' websites and book trailers, other students searched for topics and themes related to their books. On students' final work day, many took advantage of the time to scroll the document and browse the related content. Below are screenshots taken from some of the HyperDocs:

Using MackinVIA

 One of the many online reading resources available to us from the Heartland AEA is the online library MackinVIA.

Literacy Studies students spent a couple of days exploring the audiobooks and ebooks available to them from MackinVIA and completed a scavenger hunt to direct some of their exploration. 

Many students found the MackinVIA had some of their old favorites--Alan Gratz & Gordon Korman titles, the Amulet series, A Dog's Purpose, and more!--and also found some new titles that interested them. Some of the books getting a lot of attention right now in the library include:

Students had class time to complete the scavenger hunt and check out any items of interest. Many found that while a title may be unavailable in our own MS library, they were able to check it out from MackinVIA and try the book in audio or ebook form.

You can take a look at the scavenger hunt below:

Using Google Slides to Build an "App"

Recently seventh grade Literacy Studies students completed a long-term assignment that combined fiction books with nonfiction reading in our AEA databases. My colleagues Lacey Sedrel and Melissa White recommended that students use Google Slides to create what appears to be an app so students could show what they learned in an unusual way. Thanks to Gina Rodgers and and Amber Bridge, digital learning consultants from Grant Wood AEA, who shared their presentation "Google Slides: The Swiss Army Knife of Google Tools" at a fall technology conference session that Lacey and Melissa attended. It was the inspiration for students' work for this unit.

First, students used our Destiny catalog and Destiny Discover to identify nonfiction topics associated with a fiction book of their choice. Students also talked with one another about common books read to get feedback on nonfiction topics not listed as subject headings in the catalog. We also used our class read aloud Solo by Kwame Alexander as an example:

What we noticed was that several nonfiction topics we identified with the story weren't listed as subject headings, such as adoption, Ghana, guitars, and music. Ultimately, students would choose two nonfiction topics from their reading to become the basis of their research in our AEA databases.

Once fiction books and nonfiction topics were solidified, students worked in Slides to create their "apps." Along the way, students learned a few new tricks in Slides--namely, how to orient their Slides vertically and how to link Slides within the presentation to one another. The template from which they worked included five Slides:

1. Front page
2. Home screen
3. Fiction book
4. Nonfiction topic #1
5. Nonfiction topic #2

Students' nonfiction topics became the focus of their work in our AEA databases. Students briefly worked with SUPERSearch, which allowed us to discuss how to narrow a search and search particular types of resources.

Students also returned to familiar databases like Britannica and CultureGrams to complete some of their work. 

Students turned in their work through Google Classroom, but we also shared our links with one another using Padlet. This allowed different classes to see their classmates' work and read about a variety of topics. 

Accessing one another's projects and viewing the work in presentation mode allowed students to move through Slides as though they really were using an app based on the fiction book. Below are some Slides from students' work:

Finally, students responded in a Google Form in a ticket out after looking at one another's projects and reading about several books and nonfiction topics.

3-2-1 Responses

In a professional development session last spring, a colleague shared an activity she called "3-2-1 Responses" as a way to get students talking with one another about both new and learned content. Literacy Studies students have been using this activity verbally, but this time we tried it as a written response.

Throughout the year, students access our All Things Reading Symbaloo for a variety of reasons, including author study work and finding author and title read-alikes.

You can access the Symbaloo HERE.

As a way to gather student responses and guide their exploration at different author and book series websites, students completed a 3-2-1 chart on a handout shared with them in our Google Classroom.

How great to read such a variety of responses from so many of the students! While many visited the same sites--April Henry, Raina Telgemeier, and Alan Gratz were their top 3 choices--the 3-2-1 format gave such a range of answers and helped guide their reading and work at each site. 

Stay tuned--more 3-2-1 activities to follow--it's a great way to get students sharing and talking about their work!