21st Cent. Lit. Classroom Plan -2-Critical Reading

In this post, I will describe the second cornerstone I see for my 21st Century Literacy Classroom: Critical Reading.

Me: “Where did you hear that, Josh.”
Josh: “I read it on the internet.”
Me: “Does that make it true?”
Josh: “Yeah, I read it on the internet.”
Me: “Oy Vey! We need to talk…”

If it’s on the internet then it must be true, right? It is a common misconception by children and adults alike. Kids recognize a video game when they see it and know that it is not real, but when it comes to the internet it is all real. They don’t know any different, and sometimes their parents don’t either.

The amount of information at our students’ fingertips is growing everyday until they become hopeless lost in mountains of information. Adding to that are blogs and other self-publishing tools that may include bias in the mix. Our students need to be able to sort through the write noise of information influx and decide what is useful. They must be able to think critically about what they read.

Part 2: Critical Reading
There is no doubt that we need to teach our students to read. They also need to be able to think about what they read, but we don’t always teach that. One problem I have with the “back to basics” movement is that we should not go backwards on literacy. We should move literacy beyond the basics and into 21st century literacy.

Children need to read stories in order to build a love for reading. We are great including fiction stories in our classrooms while teaching literacy. However, reading stories often does not carry over into the work-a-day world.
Non-fiction reading usually comes in the form of textbooks that students are expected to trust every word without question. No wonder they trust every word they read on the internet … they’ve been trained to.

The Plan:
1. I will have to give my students a reason not to trust everything they read…to think critically about what they read. I have a collection of false sites that I will mix in with some strange-but-true sights. The students will then have to evaluate the web sites and decide whether they are fact or fiction. I think I’ll create this activity as a Webquest to give it some structure. Surely, this already one out there that I can reuse without having to reinvent the wheel.

I have tried this once before, but the evaluation form was too long and complicated for my 3rd graders. I think I will simply have them “triangulate” their sources: check the site’s validity through 3 sources the site cites.

2. We will also do research using kid-friendly search engines. They will have to learn how to narrow, widen, or sort through the results of a search. They will have to evaluate whether a site is useful to use in their research. Then they will will have to give credit to the source.

I will teach them how to use keywords in a search window to refine search results. The harder part will be evaluating whether a a site is useful of not. Our Triangulating-our-sources will come in handy here. They will also need to be able to skim a large amount of reading to find important words. That skill will come with practice.

Crediting the source will be easier with online writing, since we can informally give credit to a site through linktribution. In 3rd grade, we won’t go much beyond a title, author, and address for formal site attribution.

3. Finally, we will be reading blogs and other web 2.0 sites as we write in our own blogs. When reading people’s thoughts and feelings, you have to consider whether bias colors their words. Bias is a subtle slant on meaning that 3rd graders often don’t catch. It will take many exposures to examples of clear bias for them to recognize it when they read it. The Stormfront site at martinlutherking.org is a classic example, but inappropriate for my 3rd graders. I’ll find some bias examples in blogs and elsewhere that I can use.

In third grade, we are shifting from learning-to-read to reading-to-learn. This may be too complex and abstract at first, so we’ll have to practice critical reading with lots of clear examples to read and concrete steps to follow.

Media Literacy

• Examining how individuals interpret messages differently, how
  values and points of view are included or excluded and how media can
  influence beliefs and behaviors.

Using technology as a tool to research, organize,
evaluate and communicate information, and the possession of a fundamental
understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of
information,

NETS for Students Standards by ISTE

3. Research and Information Fluency
Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students:

b. locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.
c. evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks.

Correlation with the 21st Century Skills


Media Literacy

• Understanding how media messages are constructed, for
  what purposes and using which tools, characteristics and conventions.
• Examining how individuals interpret messages
  differently, how values and points of view are included or excluded and how
  media can influence beliefs and behaviors.

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