Critical thinking and online reading need to go hand in hand―but they often don’t. Students click, swipe, and believe because they don’t know how to do otherwise. At times, so do we. And that’s a problem. Fighting Fake News combats this challenge by helping you model how to read, myth-bust, truth-test, and respond in ways that lead to wisdom rather than reactivity.

No matter what content you teach, the lessons showcased here provide engaging, collaborative reading and discussion experiences so students can:

• Notice how teacher and peers read
  digital content, to be mindful of how
  various reading pathways influence
  perception
  
• Identify the author background, the
  website sponsor, and other evidence
  that help set a piece in context
  
• Stress-test the facts by evaluating
  news sources, reading laterally, and
  other critical reading strategies
  
• Use "Reader’s Rules of Notice" to
  learn to identify common rhetorical
  devices used to influence the reader
  
• Be aware of how for-profit social
  media platforms feed on our responses
  to narrow rather than widen our
  reading landscape

We are still in the wild west era of the digital age, scrambling to impart a safer, ethical framework for evaluating information. Thankfully, it distills to one mission: teach students (and ourselves) how to think critically, and we will forever have the tools to fight fake news.