This lesson focuses on the NewsWise value: truthful.
To question sources of information.
Recognise the difference between things that are true or untrue.
Assess the believability of sources.
Explain what makes a source more or less believable.
[10 minutes]
Explain that sometimes people might say things that are untrue. Share scenarios from the ‘Telling the truth?’ slides. Tell pupils that, in every scenario, what is being said is untrue.
Pupils work in pairs to discuss how they know each scenario is untrue.
Lead a class discussion to allow pupils the opportunity to share their ideas with the rest of the class. Pupils should have the chance to recognise that sometimes it can be easy to work out that something is untrue, but in today’s lesson they will learn what they can do when it is not so obvious.
[5 minutes]
Explain what the word fact means. (ie something that is known to be true and can be proved.) Refer back to the starter scenarios to remind pupils that untrue things can sometimes be stated as if they are facts. This is why it is important to think about where information comes from. This is the source of the information.
Tell pupils that to question a source, we should consider:
Who is saying it?
What do we know about them?
[25 minutes]
Use lesson slides to show the headline. Tell pupils that this is a real headline from a breaking story
Explain that pupils will see a series of quotes related to the story and they will have to judge how believable each source is. Introduce the believability scale from 1 to 3.
Model assessing one of the statements from the Quote cards against the two questions:
Who is saying it?
What do we know about them?
Give each pupil one of the Quote cards. They move around the room to share their quote with other pupils. With each partner they meet, they should read their example aloud then tally how believable their partner thinks the source is using the scale. The partner repeats this process with their quote and source before both move on to find a new partner. Pupils should be focusing on who is saying it and whether they’re trustworthy, not deciding if the person did or did not say the statement.
[10 minutes]
Lead a class discussion to review the believability of each source: Which of the sources did most of us think was/was not believable? What made this source seem/not seem believable?
After exploring a few of the sources, read the Report to reveal the details of the story. The Teacher notes give further explanations about each of the sources and quotes. These can be shared with the class at teacher discretion.
[10 minutes]
Use lesson slides to present pupils with a series of statements about the news. They vote on a scale of 1 to 5 to reflect how much they agree or disagree with it. (Using mini whiteboards or prepared voting cards can be a good way to ensure involvement of all pupils.)
Lead a class discussion around statements, especially where disagreements occur.
What makes you think this might be true/untrue?
Do you think this source is believable or not? Why?
What do you know about this source? Does that make the source more or less believable?
Why might it be a good idea to think about whether a source is reliable or not?
When a journalist is working on a story, they need to gather information from a variety of sources.
A breaking news story is a story that is developing quickly. These can be especially difficult to report because details may be unclear and changing as the story develops.
Sometimes, especially when a story is breaking, multiple unreliable sources will share information which may be untrue.
Number fans or voting cards (optional)
English
Reading: drawing inferences
Oracy: take part in discussions
PSHE education
Assess the reliability of sources of information; strategies to evaluate the reliability of sources
Digital literacy/computing:
Evaluate digital content
