{"id":6841,"date":"2017-09-22T17:57:31","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T17:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.plato-philosophy.org\/?post_type=teachertoolkit&p=6841"},"modified":"2025-02-17T14:08:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T22:08:54","slug":"snooping-around-snopes-assessing-assessments-fake-news","status":"publish","type":"teachertoolkit","link":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/teachertoolkit\/snooping-around-snopes-assessing-assessments-fake-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Snooping Around Snopes: Assessing Fake News"},"content":{"rendered":"

This lesson revolves around reading and discussing Carl Sagan’s “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection” and then sending students to Snopes.com to explore the large archive of hoaxes, crazes and fake news stories.<\/p>\n

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Website Resource for Fact-Checking<\/h3>\n

Snopes.com<\/a> has become an indispensable and entertaining site for assessing the status of the urban legends and fake news stories that fascinate us.<\/p>\n

Example:<\/strong> Any teacher or parent of high school students in the early fall of 2016 had to cope with a short but intense spike in anxiety about scary murderous clowns marauding through North American neighborhoods. \u00a0The craze about clowns raged for a week or so and passed quickly. \u00a0Snopes was on top of the clown craze, dismissing most of the flurry of reports as hoaxes or fake news. \u00a0Here is their assessment of a report from Canada from the Global Sun<\/em>. <\/a>Interestingly, the clown craze anticipated the fake news mania that would strike the US a few weeks later as the 2016 Presidential election gained steam in late October and early November.<\/p>\n

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Homework Assignment (prior to class #1)<\/h3>\n

You might assign the following work a few days ahead of time. As long as students have access to a computer, they should be able to do it.<\/p>\n

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  1. Read “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection” carefully (link to the article is available on the Resources tab).<\/li>\n
  2. Spend twenty minutes exploring Snopes.com and select two fake news stories of your choice. Snopes.com<\/a> catalogues these stories, and prominently displays trending stories. Select two stories that appeal to you. Please read both stories and compare them side by side. \u00a0Analyze what common elements you see in these two fake news stories. \u00a0You should use Snopes.com’s own analyses to help you; pay attention to what Snopes.com says. Take notes about your findings.<\/li>\n
  3. Please come prepared to class with the notes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0<\/h3>\n

    Class#1 (50- 60 minutes)<\/strong><\/h3>\n