Posters and Books: Building Media Literacy Skills

Posters, anchor charts, and books give students a way to learn about media literacy without using technology. These materials can help students understand how to spot fake news, check if information is reliable, and recognize bias. Teachers can also display anchor charts in the classroom so students can refer back to them when learning about online information and deciding what to trust.

RESOURCE 1: BOOK

Can You Believe It?: How to Spot Fake News and Find the Facts is a nonfiction book that helps students understand how to identify fake news and find reliable information. It explains what fake news is, why it is created, and how it can spread quickly through social media. Students learn to question the information they come across, check the source, compare information with other sources, and pay attention to headlines and images. The book also encourages students to slow down and think before believing or sharing something online. Its simple and engaging approach makes these ideas easier for students to understand and apply.

CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE PRACTICE

This book supports culturally responsive teaching by showing diverse children in its illustrations, allowing students to see different people represented. It also connects to the idea of critical consciousness by encouraging students to question who creates information, why it is shared, and whose perspectives may be missing (Ladson‐Billings, 1995).

CROSS-CURRICULAR CONNECTIONS

Science: Strand A1 - Students can apply the skills they learned from the book and focusing on checking sources and evidence when evaluating science-related claims.
Health: Strand D3 - Students can apply the book’s fact-checking strategies when looking at health information, advertisements, or claims they come across online.

MULTILITERACIES FRAMEWORK

Multimodality: This book uses written text, illustrations, headings, and different visual elements to explain ideas about fake news.
Experiencing: Students can connect the book’s examples to information they have seen online or in their everyday lives.
Analyzing: Students examine the information in this book and think about how they can tell if something is trustworthy.
Applying: Students can use the strategies from the book to check information they come across online.

CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY

This book builds students' skills by teaching them to check sources, compare information across other sources, and look closely at headlines and images. It also encourages the disposition to slow down and think before believing or sharing, and it develops criticality by helping students ask why fake news is created and who it might benefit.

CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS

A2.2 – Online Safety, Well-Being, and Etiquette: The book encourages students to think before believing or sharing information they find online.
A2.3 – Gather, Evaluate, and Use Information: The book teaches students to question information, check where it comes from, and look for facts before deciding if it is reliable.
A2.4 – Forms, Conventions, and Techniques: The book helps students notice how headlines, images, and the way information is presented can affect how they understand a message.