Self-paced lesson plan for students to create a production set based on film scripts.
This lesson will help students develop and practice methods for verifying sources, arguments, and evidence presented on social media. After a short lecture on the importance of verifying information on social media and an overview of approaches to verification, students practice, first as a whole class and then in small groups. Note: A free educator account is required to access these materials.
The Internet teems with websites seeking to advance specific political agendas while concealing their true intent, identity, or backers. These sites often have high production values and the trappings of legitimacy (e.g., boards of directors, links to academic studies, even 501(c)(3) status). In this digital task, students are asked to evaluate such a website. Note: A free educator account is required to access these materials.
Preparation and practice are the keys to a successful interview and amazing story. This lesson uses a famous art project, Humans of New York, to reverse-engineer good interview questions and techniques. Before you write your own interview questions, understand your goal: to get soundbites that connect with your audience, illuminate the topic and move your story forward. Click on the Activities Tab to complete the lesson.
What makes a video story good isn’t just about the topic, it’s how you tell the story. In this lesson, you will focus on key elements that make for great nonfiction stories like news packages, video profiles, explainers, and short documentaries.
Through watching several examples of commercials, campaign ads, TED talks, sports videos, instructional videos, and mini-documentaries, students will learn how to determine the audience, purpose, misconceptions, and level of influence various forms of media has.
Journalists often pitch story ideas inspired by events occurring in their communities or by issues they care about, but they also turn to the Internet and social media to find out what topics are engaging a large audience. This lesson will challenge students to think about the term “newsworthy” and what makes a story worthy of being reported. Click on the Activities Tab to complete the lesson.
Gwen Ifill was an American journalist, television newscaster, and author. Her loss was felt acutely by young journalists in the PBS NewsHour’s Student Reporting Labs. In this video, four graduates of that program who went on to be Gwen Ifill fellows at their local PBS stations share the letters they wish they could have shared with Gwen.
The idea is to give students a larger view of the importance of libraries as preservers of history and information. Also help them see the importance of being involved.
The lesson will use a variety of skills (writing, thinking, body movement, media) in order to introduce non-verbal communication to the students.
Students will be given an introduction to the library layout and how to find books in the library catalog. They will understand strategies for choosing books for independent reading. Students will begin researching the various methods provided by teachers to present knowledge of a book at the end of the school year, why the selected it, and what other books they plan on reading next.
PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs, in partnership with the Poynter Institute's MediaWise, hosted “Face the Facts: Election 2020 Youth Town Hall.” The virtual event engaged students and first-time voters to be prepared and better informed ahead of the November elections. In this resource, Hari Sreenivasan presents highlights from this town hall meeting. This resource includes a video and teaching resources.
In this article, learn how prevention, not cure, may be a more effective way to combat misinformation.