High School Voting and Political Engagement Lesson
Our Richmond Metro League created a presentation that can be used by teachers (or with a League member) in middle and high school classrooms. This presentation focuses on registering to vote, educating yourself before voting, "election day," and how to participate in politics beyond election day.
The lesson includes a power-point to spark conversation, a worksheet to allow individuals to collect their thoughts, and notes for all parts of the presentation to help inform users. All of these lessons are free to Virginia teachers. All lessons are built on the Google platform, easily sharable via Google Classroom.
If you have questions or are interested in participating in our Civics Education program please email support@lwv-rva.org.
Note: We will send you all of the related curriculum materials after a request has been made. A League Member is optional, but we certainly would love to facilitate and participate!
Public Audience Civics Education
QUESTIONING MEDIA, FINDING TRUTH
Today, media truth, evidence, and facts compete for public attention with misinformation, rumors, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories. As consumers of political ads, social media and news outlets, students can be challenged to find the truth that will allow them to make voting decisions that align with their values. Therefore Media Literacy, the ability to determine the credibility, reliability, and veracity of news and other information, has become essential to a meaningful education. In response to these challenges, online programs have been developed to give students and the general public learning modules that provide tools, tips, and exercises to help with recognizing reliable information.
The League of Women Voters - Richmond Metro Area has compiled a list of non-partisan programs for use by teachers, students and the general public to strengthen media literacy.
We would love to hear from teachers and community members after they use these resources, please let us know your thoughts on our feedback form!
LWV Richmond Metro Recommended Resources
Checkology - News Literacy Project - get.checkology.org
Free
Middle School, High School, Adult
Top journalists and digital media experts anchor interactive lessons featuring real-world examples from social media and news sites. These learning experiences help identify credible information, find reliable sources and know what to trust, what to dismiss and what to debunk.
Special features: Individual student accounts for one-to-one instruction, Clever login capabilities, excellent for home-schooling and adult learning, and SOL aligned.
Teacher Comment: Website laid out in a simple, easy to use manner. I like the interface and the colors and graphics make it appealing. I think this is a winner. Loved this for homework - teacher can record individual student responses and students get immediate feedback.
Civics Online Reasoning (COR) - cor.stanford.edu
Free
Middle school, High school
Developed by Stanford History Education Group as part of Media Wise, supported by Google, Free lessons and assessments to help evaluate online information. Includes section with links to the published research that form the basis of the COR curriculum.
Three question at the heart of the curriculum:
1) Who is behind the information? 2) What is the evidence? 3) What do other sources say?
Teacher Comment: A strong resource, best for HS - clear lesson plans with student worksheets, really good information.
Ad Fontes - The Media Bias Chart - adfontesmedia.com
Chart available free online and lesson plans come with a fee
Middle school, High School, Adult
The mission of Ad Fontes Media is “to make news consumers smarter and news media better." The Media Bias Chart shows ratings for reliability and bias based on a given methodology. News content ratings are created by individuals with political views from across the spectrum. A software platform for educators to teach students how to rate the news themselves is available for a fee.
Teacher Comment: I love the visual aspect – a good resource for our students.
Newseum ED - newseumed.org
Free
Middle School, High School, College, Adult
Freedom Forum Institute
Resources to cultivate the First Amendment and media literacy skills essential to civic life. Learn to authenticate, analyze and evaluate information from a variety of sources and put current events in historical context through standards-aligned lesson plans, videos, primary sources, virtual classes and programs.
Explore: What qualifies as "fake" news? Why should you care what's real and what's not? How can the motivations behind news stories shape the content?
Free summer classes appropriate for a library summer series. Experienced educators and experts present hour-long virtual programs that address contemporary First Amendment issues, including media literacy.
Teacher Comment: Fantastic resource for teachers! I like the layout of the website and the fact that they have lesson plans available. I think this is another site with a student friendly layout and has some interesting interactive pieces.
PBS LearningMedia - pbslearningmedia.org
Free
Elementary School, Middle School, High School, College, Adult
A partnership of PBS and WGBH Educational Foundation
Search/browse by standards, grade level, subject area, & special collections.
A few media literacy examples:
The News and Media Literacy Collection - lesson plans & videos on High Quality Sites, Identifying
Fake News, Top 4 Tips to Spot Bad Science Reporting and Checking the Web.
BBC My World Media Literacy (ages 11 - 14) Standards-aligned resources including 10 lesson plans with curriculum extensions, video segments from the BBC World Service, and a professional development intro video to help educators kick-start the use of the My World education element in their classrooms.
Dark Money videos that address dark money influence in election campaigns and help students recognize unfair, misleading and false information in campaign ads.
Teacher Comment: I love that this one is cross curricular making it easy for teachers in all subjects to work with students on media literacy. This would be great to use in any classroom.
Cyber Civics - cybercivics.com
Cost Initial subscription fee for each level of the program depending on size of school plus a low annual renewal fee for each level. Scholarships available for schools.
Middle School
An easy to teach in classroom program (also adaptable for Distance Learning) that meets a growing need to prepare students to be ethical, safe and productive digital citizens. Three levels: Digital Citizenship, Information Literacy, and Media Literacy for Positive Participation.
Teachers access curriculum using an online portal where lessons are constantly updated. Curriculum meets educational standards.
Teacher Comment: I like that it has different levels of literacy making it a well rounded educational resource.
Other Resources
SIFT - https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/
Stop reading and reacting, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace claims, quotes, and media to original context.
Check, Please! - https://www.notion.so/Check-Please-Starter-Course-ae34d043575e42828dc2964437ea4eed
Three hour online module on the source and fact-checking that can be dropped into any course or taken as a self-study experience.
Our Common Purpose: A Campaign for Civic Strength - https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-21-009/kluge-prize-honoree-danielle-allen-launches-campaign-for-civic-strength/2021-02-18/?loclr=ealn
The Library of Congress will feature public events on the Library's Facebook page and its YouTube site, along with workshops for K-12 educators to help educators experiment and create new ways of making civic education come to life.
Let us know what you think!
LWV Richmond Metro would love to hear from teachers and community members after they use these resources, please let us know your thoughts on our feedback form! or email support@lwv-rva.org.