Recognizing Bias in the News

Many of you have probably seen the picture on the right in the form that shows up on this Patheos blog post. The group who runs this blog got to discussing it, and then Sandy recreated it adjusting the labels to be more neutral in tone for possible use in the classroom (Thank you Sandy!).

Given the issues with fake news during the election and our president's predilection to call reporting he disagrees with fake news, I felt doing something with this in my classroom would be worth the time.

To put this in context, we've spent much of the year on rhetorical analysis, but are moving into a practice of argument. My students have been very aware of the election, but less savvy about where they get their information. I teach in Washington state in a county that is less reliably liberal than Seattle is a mere 40 minutes or so to the north. My county goes democratic on many issues, but republican on others. My AP Lang classes are primarily more liberal with a very small handful who supported Trump. Those who support him feel in the minority. As many of you wherever you may live, I would have to tread lightly. So, this is what I did.

I began by distributing a black and white version from our school copier and put a color version up using my projector. We walked through it, navigating from the middle outward and from clickbait to complex. I let them know when I wasn't familiar with a news outlet, when I'd only heard of them, when I accessed them regularly, or when I had a subscription in the case of The Atlantic. I told them about how my father gets his information primarily from Breitbart and Facebook and we discussed how that created holes in his knowledge, caused him to believe things were true that had long been proven false, and made it difficult to talk to him. Living in one of the lower corners can skew your understanding of the world and even cause you to make decisions based on falsehoods. We also discussed how the BBC and The Guardian were British-based and that this list was not exhaustive by any means or completely authoritative.

Their assignment was this.

Where we get our news seems to matter more and more. Many people, like my dad, live in news bubbles of questionable or downright low quality driven by partisan fervor and advertising profits. To be an educated person in our increasingly fractured society requires that we understand what the news landscape looks like and how the various entities form their arguments.

Your task is this:

• Pick a news story that will have been reported on and discussed across the spectrum.
• Read about that from one or more mainstream sources.
• Then read about it in one or more partisan sources on each side.
• Lastly, write up you observations about how their bias manifests itself. Refer to the texts to do so. Are the fringe sources telling the whole truth? Lies? Hyper-focusing on something and blowing it out of proportion? Using inflammatory diction? Mocking the other side? Etc. Etc.

Post this on your blog.

News Source Chart in Color (PDF)

As a side note, Bucknell University has this site to help figure out how to determine whether a site is credible or not. http://researchbysubject.bucknell.edu/framework/auth

The next day in class, we pulled up their blogs on the projector, and students talked us through where they went and what they discovered. This made of a very interesting class period. I invited people to ask questions of the presenters, and I modeled that as well.

What they discovered was that the center sources were noticeably balanced. On the other hand, the sources on the fringes had recognizable problems, often only providing one side of the story. They noticed this particularly when the fringe sources were going negative on something. A few kids found deceptive stories with "facts" only reported by a single source on either the far right or the far left. They were actually quite scandalized at how poor the writing and editing was on the fringes (I confessed to them that that warmed my English teacher heart). Where the Economist stretched them intellectually, InfoWars might only quote a bunch of tweets from random people with commentary that amounted to "See what we mean?"

We ended our day with the encouragement that no matter where you live, be in Fox News or Huff Post (no one felt it safe to live in the lower corners), as educated, thinking individuals we should spend significant time in the middle so we can get all the information and have access to mainstream, balanced views of issues and the world we live in.

This activity was very positive. My students told me it was very helpful and made them feel empowered. One of my AP Lit classes saw it when I turned on the projector before I could switch the input to the document camera. They wanted to know what it was and why they didn't get to do it last year. Their take was that it sounded like a great assignment, and they wanted to do that instead of Heart of Darkness (can you believe it!?). If I do this again next year, I will likely place our local news sources (print, TV, and radio) on this chart as well.

I'd be interested to know what your students think should you choose to try this or something similar. Please leave feedback in the comments below.

Players, Game & Response: Expanding Perspectives for Synthesis

We often discuss having students enter a conversation with the sources when they write a synthesis essay.  This activity helps students think creatively about a source in order to determine multiple perspectives on an issue and enter the conversation as various stakeholders.  It can also be used with current events to build a repertoire of evidence to draw from on the exam.  I start by modeling the activity with an article I select and then have students bring in an article or editorial on a topic of choice.  The activity is as follows:

Step 1: Select an article on a topic of choice.  I used an article from my local newspaper about air quality issues. 

Step 2:  Have students read the article and mark the following:

a)    Highlight the issues discussed in the article in pink.

b)    Highlight who cares about the issue in blue (These are the players in the game or the stakeholders interested in the issue.)  On the side of the article, have students list people or entities that are not named in the article that also have an interest.

c)     Highlight what they think in yellow. Students also give positions for the people or entities that they added in the margin. 

Step 3:  Pass out the Players, Game & Response Chart to the students. 

In the Players column, students list five stakeholders (people or groups with concerns about the issue).  These players can be named in the article or be those people or entities not named in the article that would have an interest in the issue.  Students should choose players that have a variety of perspectives on the issue.  In the “American Lung Association ranks SLC in top 10 for worst air quality” article, players listed in the article are the Sierra Club (Shane Levy), the American Lung Association (Paul Billings), Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment (Brian Moench), and Utah’s Department of Environmental Quality (Alan Matheson).  Players not listed in the article are Utah residents who suffer from bad air quality, parents, business owners, automobile drivers, Utah Transit Authority, Utah Legislature, City Council members, etc.

In the Game column, students describe each stakeholder’s position either from the article or from what students know about this person or group.  For example, students listed that the legislature wants to encourage business development with fewer regulations, but they also want protect the health of Utah Residents.  Students felt business and industry would be against stricter emission controls since these regulations would cut profits. 

In the Response column, students pair with another student and discuss the stakeholder’s position.  Students decide whether they agree, disagree or qualify the argument and provide reasons to support their perspective. 

Have students share their thinking with the class. Creativity in naming players adds depth to the issue and makes for a lively discussion.

Step 4:  Have students select their own article to use with this activity.

Students like using this activity as a preparation for research, for it helps them brainstorm key terms for research.  I like using this to train students to interact with the sources they read. In addition, I will often assign articles from different perspectives for a seminar on an issue.  This activity helps students interact with their source so they are prepared for discussion.

Using Current Events in AP Lang

The AP Language class offers unique learning opportunities as the texts we read and topics we discuss can range across time and region. One of my personal goals as an AP Language teacher is to have my students become global citizens, which I'm sure is something most AP Lang teachers have in common. The most effective way I help students engage with the world is through the journal explode process.

A mentor of mine taught AP Language for many years and impressed upon me the importance of having students connect rhetorical analysis and argumentation skills to current events and topics. He crafted an easy-to-implement strategy that I have used religiously over my 4 years teaching AP Lang. It works like this:

Step 1: I scour the news in search for thought provoking current events. I often visit sites like Room for Debate, TED Radio Hour, or Politico. I find a topic that is intriguing, but not overly sensitive or partisan in nature. I want the topic to elicit critical thinking, so I am careful to not select topics that my students will lose sight of their argument in their emotions. Then, I form a two-part prompt similar to the structure of a Q3 prompt on the exam. I provide students background information about the event or situation and then ask them to either 1) defend, challenge, or qualify a statement or 2) examine the considerations. 

I train my students to evaluate current events through the $SEEITT strategy. $SEEITT stands for:
$ = economic implications
S = safety concerns
E = ethical concerns
E = environmental implications
I = international relations
T = technological concerns
T = time implications

I teach them that all successful arguments focus on at least one of those considerations. Those arguments focus on fact and risks instead of pure emotion.

Step 2: In class, I have these prompts projecting on the board as students enter the class. I review the prompt and provide any additional background knowledge the students might need that I couldn't fit onto the slide. From there, the students free-write for 5 minutes and craft an argument and evidence. We then share out and debate for about 7-10 minutes. As students discuss the situation, other students may take note of evidence used by their peers in their notebooks.

Here are a few examples of my daily journals:

1. Inspired by this article:

Journal: Starting January 1, everyone in France over the age of 15 became an organ donor unless they “opted-out” in the country’s refusal program. Every day 22 Americans die while they wait on the transplant list. What should we consider ($SEEITT) about organ donation?

D, C, Q: America should change from an opt-in system to an opt-out system.

2. Inspired by this article:

Journal: The number of 18- to 35-year-olds seeking prenups is on the rise nationwide, but many millennials are more interested in protecting intellectual property — such as films, songs, software and even apps that haven’t been built yet — than cash.

D, C, Q: Prenuptial agreements should only cover physical or monetary property.

Some days I will simply use a Q3 prompt we do not have time to actually write in class. My students have no idea that it is a prompt, so it is a good way to help them see how the daily journals connect to the exam and their ability to craft meaningful, nuanced arguments on the spot. 

Step 3: Once a month my students select a journal and "explode" it into a full argumentative essay. I do not require a specific number of paragraphs, but I often assign them specific rhetorical moves and techniques to try out as they go (anaphora, epistrophe, staccato sentences, etc.).

I love this easy-to-implement daily writing because it helps me focus on argument development every day. It also serves as a formative assessment which ultimately leads to a summative assessment. Our daily discussions create a strong sense of community as students often develop beliefs and find their voice about global topics many of them wouldn't encounter until they graduate or become adults.

How do you incorporate current events into your classroom?

Lesson: Comparing Contexts

One of the keys to successful Rhetorical Analysis is the ability to  apply the understanding of context. How does the situation of the text impact the author's decisions?

In particular, the Question 2 passage the past two years have been speeches with specific contextual situations (Chavez on Martin Luther King and Thatcher on Reagan). In order to do well in their analysis, students needed to consider how the situation impacted the author's rhetorical moves.

While vital to understanding, this is also something that students really struggle with, in my experience.

I've often wondered why they find this so difficult. To me it seems so simple: the context is that which surrounds. The time and place the speech is given, audience prior experience and mood, speaker background and reputation. For me, context is a deep and exciting exploration into background information. But students seem to balk at the mere word, I suppose because it's an abstract concept.

So I developed a lesson that helps them dig deeply into context and explore how those contexts impact the text.

I begin with two texts that have similar but not identical contexts. The two that I love for this activity are Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor Address and George W. Bush's 9/11 Address. I like the clear similarities (both presidents, both addressing attacks on home soil) and also the clear differences (very different circumstances of attacks, different audiences who had different knowledge of the events).

First, I ask my students to read them once through to get the gist. They highlight anything they notice, and we clarify each speaker's purpose using vivid verbs, but we don't talk much about the speech just yet.

Next, we spend a good long time brainstorming as much as we can about each speaker, audience, and subject. I use this graphic organizer, and this year I actually had them fill it out in google-docs, which saved us the step of having to move small group-to-class brainstorm. We brainstorm as much as we possibly know about each of the three parts of the triangle (and we ignore the "analysis" section of the chart for now). It's okay if some of the points being brainstormed are not relevant to this particular speech. For example, the fact that FDR was in a wheelchair does not necessarily have a rhetorical impact on this speech, but it's part of the context of him as a speaker, so I let my students include it on the brainstorm anyhow.

After we feel like we've got a really in-depth understanding of the elements of context, we go back to the speeches. I usually have them split up, and now we talk more in depth about each author's choices; I do this early in the year, so this is a pretty bare-bones "what do you notice?" conversation, but it's our first step towards analysis.

For example, students might notice that FDR spends most of the beginning of his speech outlining exactly what happened, where, and by whom. They notice his repeated use of "Last night, the Japanese..." And that leads to a conversation: Why did he do that? What did he know about his context that caused him to start out with that? Students usually recognize that FDR's audience needed the details of the attack because most of them hadn't personally witnessed it. They might say that his primary audience was reluctant to enter the war, so they needed mounds of hard evidence to persuade them of its necessity.

On the contrary, students notice that Bush doesn't spend as much time describing the attacks, because by the time he delivered this address, most of his audience had seen them happen on television. They notice that Bush's tone is more comforting, and more of an attempt to bolster the spirit of the American people. These are all choices that are informed by Bush's understanding of the subject and his audience.

We will usually spend two 75 minute blocks on this activity. After we're done with this conversation, I will ask my students to write a paragraph describing the relevant elements of context, and a very simple attempt at an analysis paragraph (I usually ask them to identify the author's purpose and then connect one element of context to one choice that the speaker made: "Because ____ knew _____, he chose to ______").

The next class period, I will put some of their paragraphs up on the doc cam so we can talk about which paragraphs are on target and which ones are weaker at showing logical connections between context and choices.

This has worked well for me. I really love it because inevitably we'll get back to context later in the year and they'll go back to brainstorming only a few details for each element of the triangle. They say "I don't know, what's context again?" And I can always refer them right back to their chart from this lesson so they can be reminded of the depth at which context can be considered.

#aplangchat Spring 2017 Schedule!

Hope everyone had great holidays! Here is a “plan” for the rest of the 2016-2017 school year.

We’ve decided to continue our monthly combo chat with the AP Lit folks on the first Sunday of every month during their regular time slot from 9-10pm ET. We’ll be using the hashtag #apeng for those sessions only.

On weeks when we do #apeng on Sunday, we will not do a formal Lang Chat the following Wednesday. During our regular time slot that week, feel free to jump on and chat with each other about your needs using the #aplang hashtag during our regular time (8-9pm ET), but there will be no formal questions.

All other weeks we will be on our regular Wednesday schedule, except breaks for holidays as noted below. I’m asking the #aplangchat community to assist with hosting duties once per month. Please send me a message if you would like to host on one of the dates indicated below

Here’s a chart for each month to help clarify.

GUEST POST: Written Communication

This week's post is written by guest author Jennifer Williams. If you'd like to contact her directly, see the end of her post!

I constantly look for ways to make my lessons more applicable or more understandable for my students, especially my AP students. (Honestly, right now, I’m just trying to get my 10th graders to write more than 5 sentences in a paragraph—we spend a lot of time discussing why they could/would possibly need more than the bare minimum. Sigh. I’m not going to tell them they might also need less than that “magic” 5.)

I adore teaching literature, but I’ll save it for another post; rather, I want to discuss my evolution from a teacher who teaches writing to a writer who encourages (and attempts to teach and make time for) a deeper, more meaningful connection to the process.

I recently began thinking more deeply about why we write and how we communicate as humans. Why do we make movies and write books and design buildings and sculpt and SnapChat and tweet and write songs and tell stories? What is the purpose of all this? To torture students by making them analyze and write essays? Well, that’s only part of the fun.

The entire purpose of everything we do is to communicate and make connections with others. A popular textbook claims, “Everything’s an Argument.” I don’t think that’s true. Just because you can argue anything does not make everything an argument. Rather, everything is an attempt to connect with other humans in the hope someone, somewhere understands and lets you know you are not alone.

All our movies and essays and novels and tweets and pictures and art and architecture and fashion and experiments are simply, sometimes, clumsy attempts at connecting to the human race. We desperately want others to look us in the eyes (not always literally), touch our hand or shoulder, and assert, “I hear you. Yes, I get it. No, you’re not a freak. I feel/think/say that too.” Those three words, “I hear you,” seem to be the most important. We need to be heard—not listened to, but actively, truly, deeply heard. To connect minds and emotions.

I need to continue conveying this to my students. We discuss author’s/creator’s purpose and how authors/creators then make conscious choices to convey a message and achieve that purpose. Authors/creators pick one word over another, they decide on setting and characters, they use imagery and symbols, they create sentences and paragraphs and dialogue—all to convey a message and create a connection between the audience and the medium. I call this the “Hows, Whys, and So whats or Who cares.” How does the author use language? Why does the author use the device? So what or who cares if this was used? How does it help convey the message to the audience? How does it help the audience connect to the work?

I drill this into my students until they begin asking these questions themselves. However, to take our thoughts and work deeper, I need to paint the picture of one human trying to communicate thoughts and emotions to another human.

Let’s focus again on written communication. “Know your audience” continues to be the #1 rule of writing. Once you know your audience, you can tailor your communication for them. Sometimes the simple word is best; sometimes the slang or curse word is the right word; sometimes passive voice is acceptable. Sometimes you can use a fragment. This year, I began explaining the burden of written communication falls on the communicator. The communicator needs to make the message as clear as possible with setting, characters, figurative language, necessary punctuation, diction, etc.

Do not expect your audience to read your mind.

This is when miscommunication happens: we get slothful and sloppily toss out words and images, expecting the audience to chase after and gather up the haphazard fragments and piece together an imperfect and incomplete picture. Then we get angry when our audience can’t interpret our lazy style and misconstrues our incoherent message. We complain about being “misunderstood,” but did we work to make ourselves understood? Probably not, it’s much easier to place blame than to accept responsibility.

Writing and speaking are gifts. Other animals communicate in various ways, but humans have the capacity to create words, give them meaning and nuance, to attach inflection and punctuation, to utilize body language and facial expressions—we have so much at our fingertips; however, we must and should be good stewards with our gifts. The world is chaotic, but words, especially written words, can bring order to that chaos. An essay or novel or tweet is NOT creating something from nothing; they are attempts to bring structure and infuse meaning into the disorder.

I want my students to learn the rules of format and Standard English so they can more effectively communicate with others. Then, I want them to learn how and when to break those rules. I did not truly understand this until I sat down and worked on honing my own skills, which is a never-ending process.

In the beginning of my career, I focused so much on simply getting students to write a “proper” essay, with a thesis and the other requisite pieces. I still must do this because of the restrictions of standardized testing, the AP test, and college expectations; however, in the last 4-5 years (years in which my own writing blossomed and flourished in the form of poetry and example “essays” for students), I found myself entering into discourse of the hows and whys of effective writing. Why do we do what we do? Yes, we need commas, but when and why? Dashes are so lovely—here’s why. Using more than one exclamation point at the end of a sentence doesn’t make your words more exciting; those extraneous marks just make your words louder. How do we make this more interesting, without relying on 20 exclamation points? When should you start a new paragraph? Generally when you start a new topic, but sometimes your reader needs a break…that’s when you can start a new paragraph. Traditionally, teachers/professors like the thesis to be the last sentence of your intro, so when you are writing for them, do that. Now, let’s look at where some other authors placed their thesis statements.

Increasingly more, I quickly review/teach the rules, then I eagerly anticipate conversations with those students ready to spread their wings and try breaking the rules. (This is yet another reason I wish my classes were no larger than about 20-25 students. Sigh….) I even sit in desks next to students or force myself onto the floor beside them so we can discourse on a more equal plane (see those non-verbal cues?) and so I am less of the “expert.”

My next step is maybe for my students to actually watch me struggle through a prompt or a blog post. I’ve done this before with various levels of success. Right now, many of them simply want a formula for how to get an “A.” My dream is to throw out grades for any and all writing assignments. Rather, I would love the time to have conferences with my students and help them wrestle with and fine-tune their work. Unfortunately, I have restrictions to which I must conform…as do my students.

In the meantime, I will try to balance the “bad” writing they must do for the AP and end-of-instruction tests with lessons in revising and editing. I will do my damnedest to help students understand that while writing is a much needed and desired skill, it is also an art form. Writing takes lifeless words, cautiously examines them, then reaches in and chooses that special word. Writing pairs that particular word with other carefully selected gems and strings them together to form sentences, which then form paragraphs. Eventually, when we take the time to judiciously craft our words, we just might reach out and touch someone, thus creating that most beautiful of connections: humans in understanding and harmony.  

Jennifer Williams is currently in her 12th+ year of teaching. This is her 8th year of teaching pre-AP/AP, but she says "I never feel like I truly have it figured out." This year she is teaching 11th AP Lang. & Comp. in Oklahoma. Email: APEngTeach@gmail.com. Twitter: @JennWillTeach

Snippets from NCTE2016: Lessons from Authors

One of the most amazing things about an NCTE conference is the contact one has with authors.  This conference provided the opportunity to learn from some masters of Young Adult Literature and non-fiction.  Ta-Nehisi Coates stated in his interview, “I was most effective in school when I could connect it to something real.”  Several of the YA authors taught the importance of making learning real through their writing methods and the issues they addressed in fiction.  In “Equity and Social Justice: Using Informational Texts and Literature in Urban and Rural Classrooms to Help Young Readers Become Informed Advocates and Global Citizens”, Scholastic authors Deborah Hopkinson and Deborah Wiles with Professor Brian Williams at Georgia State University had us consider issues of social justice as we learned to “evaluate, process and communicate information”.  These presenters considered the danger of a single story.  Professor Williams used the story of Rosa Parks asking, “Do we know the story?”  As we pieced together the Parks story from multiple perspectives: Park’s, the bus drivers, situations in the community, and associations Parks had, we learned what we choose to leave out impacts the story.  If we leave out that Parks made an active decision not to get up out of resistance and her work with the NCAP, we don’t think of the civil rights movement of being strategic.  The idea that this was a strategic act, empowers students. 

How can this idea can be used in an AP classroom?  Students need to know the value of multiple perspectives when writing synthesis essays and considering evidence to use for argumentation.  Assign student research on different issues or occurrences with a perspective in mind.  Each student can present their story from the assigned perspective, then students can synthesize evidence from multiple perspectives for a combined story.  Students can consider how the perspective impacts the story.  If several different topics are shared in class, students have evidence to mine in the argument essay. This will hone evaluation and analysis of evidence and provide students with the understanding of how multiple perspectives interact—a valuable skill for a synthesis essay.

Deborah Wiles writes documentary novels and her current series is focused on the 1960’s (Countdown and Revolution).  While the novels are middle school level, her research process and synthesis of ideas provides valuable insights for high school students. She intertwines her story with opinionated biographies, music playlists, artifacts from the time period such as letters, newspaper clippings, etc.  using Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com/debbiewiles/) to organize her research.  As Wiles states, “Everything is a Remix.”  This remix idea is a great way to teach students to synthesize information.  Her novel, Countdown deals with propaganda—an excellent way to delve into the fake news vs. real news issue we have today. 

How can this idea be used in an AP classroom?  Have students question what is happening in their world.  Next, have them consider what else is going on in the world at that time.  How do the stories intersect?  Have students research multiple genres and organize their research on Pinterest.  Next, they are ready to synthesize the argument about the “story” they selected.  

Deborah Hopkinson writes perspectives on history for upper Elementary and Middle School students. Again, her methods can inform our students.  She tackles issues such as public health activism through The Great Trouble as she considers cholera.  She allows history to inform the reader through critical consciousness.

How can this be used in the AP classroom?  One of the things I notice the most when scoring the Argument question at the reading is history miscues made by students.  Hopkinson and the other presenters argue for students to be academically competent, culturally competent and have critical consciousness. Assigning students key historical issues to research from multiple perspectives and sharing them with the class, will provide a bank of historical evidence for argument questions.  After students have assembled the bank, students can practice using this information in argument prompts.

For more information about the NCTE Annual Conference, visit this link.