A Fight Breaks Out at a Concert? Teaching about Ambiguity through the Information Cycle

Young adolescents, who may have limited experience with the range of sources found online (Kohnen et al., 2021) and who are still developing their ability to think logically and abstractly (Piaget, 1971), can be especially vulnerable to such tactics (Metzger et al., 2015). [...]the challenge for ELA...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Voices from the middle 2021-12, Vol.29 (2), p.76-81
Main Authors: Kohnen, Angela M., Mertens, Gillian E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescents
Ambiguity
Check Lists
Credibility
Critical Literacy
Curricula
Early Adolescents
Educational aspects
Evaluation
False information
Grade 8
Information literacy
Information sources
Lesson Plans
Logical Thinking
Middle school students
Music Activities
Periodicals
Police
Reading Instruction
Scholarships & fellowships
Social Media
Social networks
Source materials
Student Interests
Teaching
Teenagers
Websites
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Summary:Young adolescents, who may have limited experience with the range of sources found online (Kohnen et al., 2021) and who are still developing their ability to think logically and abstractly (Piaget, 1971), can be especially vulnerable to such tactics (Metzger et al., 2015). [...]the challenge for ELA teachers is to encourage students to seek out multiple perspectives and ambiguity while reinforcing that some "perspectives" are simply lies and sometimes "ambiguity" is an illusion. When searching for information about a specific topic, middle-level students often rely on sources that simply address the issue (or appear at the top of search engine results), regardless of the credibility of the source (e.g., Bowler et al., 2018; Kohnen, et al., 2021). To help students think carefully about different types of sources they might encounter online on a given topic, we designed a lesson based on the "information cycle" (University of Illinois, n.d.), a graphical representation of how information moves into the world over time, often beginning with posts on social media, and then moves chronologically outward to newspaper articles, books, government reports, or documentaries. [...]a decade after the event, students returned to primary source accounts: witness interviews and primary source news reporting.
ISSN:1074-4762
1943-3069
DOI:10.58680/vm202131614