It will come as no huge surprise that our country's political climate has edged its way into my classroom. I've written before about the strict ideological views held by my students, and more recently I've been seeing it play out in their use of biased news sources in argumentative writing. After I read the sixth essay on the same topic using the same one-sided sources, I knew it was time to address the issue. Like many issues in my classroom, this was my fault. I had assumed my students (juniors and seniors in an upper-level writing class) knew the importance of using unbiased sources. I told them on the front end, "Don't use biased sources," but then after the fact I began to see that they truly didn't know the difference. (This is clearly being added to my curriculum for semesters to come.) However, I knew lecturing wouldn't help. I needed a way to help them visualize this issue. I did some quick research and came across an activity from this website. I divided students into two groups and gave each group a short fictional news article to read about a fellow named Sir Sam. In their groups they were directed to read the article and then create a list of at least six adjectives to describe Sam. I had each group come to the board and share the list. As you can see, each group's list was quite different, and in some cases their chosen words were exact opposites. (This was an accidental miracle.)
Next I asked one student from each group to give a quick recap of what happened in the article without focusing on the characteristics of Sam. Each group reported the same story: Sir Sam was fired. However, one article painted him in a flattering way, while the other...not so much. We then moved into a discussion of bias in the media. We talked about how using one-sided sources destroys our credibility as writers. I admitted my own weaknesses in this area. I like reading articles that support my worldview; I feel challenged when I don't. But in the end, my viewpoint is strengthened when I consider the whole picture. Finally I introduced students to some websites that will help them determine the bias in the sources they are considering. This lesson wasn't earth-shaking, and it did disrupt my previous plans. However, it was necessary. Now if only our country could take this lesson to heart.
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September 2020
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