Teaching Media Literacy with Social Media News

Featuring tools, activities, and insightful stories from a CIA analyst and instructor with 30+ years? of experience, this practical and engaging book supports busy educators to teach the lifelong skills of news and media literacy to their students.

Based on existing curriculum and teaching standards, this guidebook shows how social studies and English language arts (ELA) teachers can build students? confidence with social media evaluation skills, which are critical to engaging in civic discourse and building a stronger democracy. In Part 1, Whitehurst gives an overview of the media evaluation techniques based on those you would learn as a CIA analyst, including understanding how our biases and mindset make us vulnerable to disinformation, learning how media tries to persuade us, checking facts, and spotting disinformation. Part 2 dives deeper by showing teachers how learners can check if an argument on social media is valid, and how fallacies and manipulation tactics in online arguments can complicate this important skill. It is illustrated by examples from social media and contemporary popular culture in different mediums, including videos, photos, memes, and AI-generated content. You can also find fresh and updated social media examples on the author?s website, News Literacy Sleuth.

Packed with practical classroom resources, examples from popular culture, and engaging insights into the CIA analyst role, this book is designed to support middle and high school teachers with news and media literacy in social studies, civic education, and ELA.

"Roy Whitehurst's Teaching Media Literacy with Social Media News is exceptional in the media literacy field. Leveraging his CIA expertise, it offers educators a well-researched toolkit with practical techniques, real-world examples, and engaging lesson plans. This indispensable guide empowers teachers to help students excel in our complex digital world, fostering critical thinking about contemporary media."

-Tim Jones, Library Media Specialist and K-12 Media Literacy Teacher of the Year 2023 (NAMLE)

?In a complex information environment, learning how to evaluate different kinds of information is essential for tweens and teens in and beyond the classroom. The excellent help and advice in Teaching Media Literacy with Social Media News will be a boon to teachers and students. A wide variety of lesson plans, exercises and information will help teachers develop their students? critical thinking skills. Exercises using popular social media platforms will help make the lessons relevant to students.?

-Joanna Burkhardt, Faculty Librarian, University of Rhode Island

?If ever there was a time for this book, this is it. Forces are at work overtime to fool media illiterate students. Roy Whitehurst is uniquely qualified to provide educators with a critically important tool for their toolbox. You'll be pleased to have this one on the shelf for teachers.

-Frank W Baker, Media Literacy Clearinghouse, 2019 UNESCO Honoree