Reading: evaluating sources Stage 5€¦ · Web viewWhen the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 in October 1957 (followed one month later by Sputnik 2, containing Laika the dog), the US

| NSW Department of Education Literacy and Numeracy Teaching Strategies - Reading

Evaluating sourcesStage 5

Learning focusStudents will learn to identify and evaluate the accuracy and validity of a statement in a range of texts. Students will explore credibility and validity of sources.

Syllabus outcomeThe following teaching and learning strategies will assist in covering elements of the following outcomes:

EN5-1A: responds to and composes increasingly sophisticated and sustained texts for understanding, interpretation, critical analysis, imaginative expression and pleasure

EN5-5C: thinks imaginatively, creatively, interpretively and critically about information and increasingly complex ideas and arguments to respond to and compose texts in a range of contexts.

Year 9 NAPLAN item descriptors identifies the effect of a sentence in an information text evaluates the accuracy of statements using information from a speech evaluates the accuracy of statements using information from a text evaluates the accuracy of statements using information from an information text evaluates the presence of information in a persuasive text evaluates the presence of information in the orientation for a narrative

Literacy Learning Progression guideUnderstanding Texts (UnT9-UnT11)Key: C=comprehension P=process V=vocabulary

UnT9

evaluates text for relevance to purpose and audience (C) analyses how language in texts serve different purposes (identifies how descriptive language is used

differently in informative and persuasive texts) (see Grammar) (P)

UnT10

evaluates the effectiveness of language forms and features used in moderately complex or some sophisticated texts (C)

evaluates the reasoning and evidence in a persuasive text (C)

education.nsw.gov.au

UnT11

analyses the credibility and validity of primary and secondary sources (C) evaluates the style of a text (C) identifies contradictions and inconsistencies in texts (P) analyses the social, moral and ethical positions taken in texts (C) analyses bias in texts (C)

Resources Colour coding information vs persuasive language - Appendix 1 Analysing texts for reliability - Appendix 2 Source evaluation checklist - Appendix 3 Scavenger hunt for credibility - Appendix 4 Content to search for bias - Appendix 5 Guide to identifying bias - Appendix 6

Where to next? Text structure and features Author bias and perspective Audience and purpose

2 Reading: evaluating sources Stage 5

Teaching strategiesWhat is fact and what is opinion?

1. Two truths and a lie: Teacher poses two true pieces of information and one untruth; students determine which they think is the lie and justify why. Students can play this in small groups. Reinforce purpose of activity: we are always evaluating what we see and hear and we need to particularly do this with information presented to us in the media.Additional tasks: Students can view the D ove beauty campaign or McDonald’s behind the scenes of advertisements. Discuss the importance of seeing the behind the scenes clips as well as why these companies may have decided to make them. Teachers should check the site’s appropriateness.

2. Students are given a topic to pretend to be an expert on – this can be written or verbal. Review compositions and draw out key elements students used to portray themselves as experts. Discuss: what makes a text trustworthy? Discuss key ideas: anyone can compose content on the internet, not everyone is an expert on the subject in which they write and we need to be alert to this.

3. Venn diagram: Teacher leads a discussion on the differences between fact and opinion. Students add ideas into a Venn diagram to determine similarities and differences. Using this information, design a set of criteria to determine fact from opinion.

4. Students use a nonfiction text that has elements of both informative and persuasive text features and colour-code what is fact and what is opinion (see Appendix 1). Students identify 5 key points from each text and find evidence to support each point.

Conspiracy theories – Fact or fiction

1. Read the article in Appendix 2 - “One Giant Lie…? Why so many people still think the moon landings were fake.” Alternative task: Students can be given a section of the text to summarise and share.

2. Identify three sources from the Internet that support the different perspectives of the moon landing. Evaluate each source using Appendix 3.

3. Discuss what people should look for when finding websites that are credible.4. Using their web evaluation document, students write an evaluation of the most accurate source,

providing evidence for their reasoning. Variation: teacher models how to scaffold an evaluation for students to use for their own compositions.

Arguing your case

1. Students are given a controversial topic linked to current unit of learning.2. Each student finds one source that corroborates their viewpoint and checks that it is reliable by

evaluating it using the Scavenger Hunt record sheet (see Appendix 4).3. Students present their case in a one-minute persuasive speech using evidence from their source.

© NSW Department of Education, Sep-23

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/behind-the-scenes-at-a-mcdonalds-photo-shoot-2012-6?r=US&IR=T

https://www.dove.com/au/stories/campaigns.html

Bias and bias by omission

1. Teacher leads discussion to explain bias; an argument or discussion, to favour one side or viewpoint by ignoring or excluding conflicting information; a prejudice against something. Bias by omission; to choose to leave out crucial facts or information that would contradict the point that the author is trying to communicate. That is, to omit some of the facts to influence the reader.

2. Brainstorm a range of synonyms for bias and arrange on a word cline. Words could include:prejudice, influence, slant, load, sway, subjective, one-sided, weight, predispose, distort, skew, bend, partisan, preference, twist, warp, angle, bigoted, blinkered, partial and twist. This could be scaffolded by providing a list of target vocabulary, including verbal or written definitions, and placing the first items on the cline with students, some of whom may not be familiar with either clines or the target vocabulary.

3. Fact or opinion: Students use a concept linked to current unit of learning to create a bank of facts, each written on sticky notes and displayed around the room. Students are then given a sticky note to add an opinion next to any facts around the classroom. Discuss vocabulary differences with facts versus opinion.

4. Conscience Alley: Students line up in two lines facing each other. One line takes the opposing perspective to the other. Students ‘fire off’ opinions or facts showing evidence of their bias. Discuss what tools and strategies were used (formal language, emotive language, generalisations, vocabulary choices, omitting information, using experts, using statistics, rhetoric and so on.)

5. Spin doctors: Students are given a concept such as ‘Voting should not be compulsory’ or ‘Cats must be kept inside to protect wildlife’. In small groups, students create a short text to demonstrate whether they support the idea or not, or if they will take an objective stance. The group members share with the class their short response. The class decides whether they are taking a negative, positive or neutral stance, and which tools they have used to illustrate this bias.

6. Students identify bias through a text comparison using Appendix 5 or using two texts linked to the current unit of learning. Students use Appendix 6 to help gather evidence. Compare with a partner to see if there were any differences and why this might be so.

Additional task

1. Students use information that they gathered in Task 3 to write a 100-200 word opinion piece, like that seen in Appendix 5. Teachers may model this written response and provide formative feedback to students as they undertake the task.

2. Students swap their completed opinion piece with a peer. Each student then completes the table at Appendix 6 for the work that their peer has produced to provide feedback.

3. Students consider the feedback given and incorporate it into their ongoing learning.


Appendix 1Evaluating information

Year 9 NAPLAN Reading Magazine, 2015 ACARA



Evaluating information









Appendix 2Analysing texts for reliabilityOne giant ... lie? Why so many people still think the moon landings were fakedBy Richard Godwin, July 2019 in The Guardian

It all started with a man called Bill Kaysing and his pamphlet about ‘America’s $30bn swindle’ ...

It took 400,000 NASA employees and contractors to put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969 – but only one man to spread the idea that it was all a hoax. His name was Bill Kaysing.

It began as “a hunch, an intuition”, before turning into “a true conviction” – that the US lacked the technical prowess to make it to the moon (or, at least, to the moon and back). Kaysing had actually contributed to the US space programme, albeit tenuously: between 1956 and 1963, he was an employee of Rocketdyne, a company that helped to design the Saturn V rocket engines. In 1976, he self-published a pamphlet called We Never Went to the Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle, which sought evidence for his conviction by means of grainy photocopies and ludicrous theories. Yet somehow he established a few perennials that are kept alive to this day in Hollywood movies and Fox News documentaries, Reddit forums and YouTube channels.

Despite the extraordinary volume of evidence (including 382kg of moon rock collected across six missions; corroboration from Russia, Japan and China; and images from the Nasa Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter showing the tracks made by the astronauts in the moondust), belief in the moon-hoax conspiracy has blossomed since 1969. Among 9/11 truthers, anti-vaxxers, chemtrailers, flat-Earthers, Holocaust deniers and Sandy Hook conspiracists, the idea that the moon landings were faked isn’t even a source of anger any more – it is just a given fact.

The podcast kingpin Joe Rogan is among the doubters. So too is the YouTuber Shane Dawson. A sociology professor in New Jersey was exposed last year for telling his students the landings were fake. While Kaysing relied on photocopied samizdat to alert the world, now conspiracists have the subreddit r/moonhoax to document how Nasa was “so lazy” it used the same moon rover for Apollo 15, 16 and 17; or how “they have been trolling us for years”; or to bring up the fact there is “one thing I can’t get my head around ...”

“The reality is, the internet has made it possible for people to say whatever the hell they like to a broader number of people than ever before,” sighs Roger Launius, a former chief historian of NASA. “And the truth is, Americans love conspiracy theories. Every time something big happens, somebody has a counter-explanation.”

It turns out British people love conspiracy theories, too. Last year, the daytime TV show This Morning welcomed a guest who argued that no one could have walked on the moon as the moon is made of light. Martin Kenny claimed: “In the past, you saw the moon landings and there was no way to check any of it. Now, in the age of technology, a lot of young people are now investigating for themselves.” A recent YouGov poll found that one in six British people agreed with the statement: “The moon landings were staged.” Four per cent believed the hoax theory was “definitely true”, 12% that it was “probably true”, with a further 9% registering as don’t knows. Moon hoaxism was more prevalent among the young: 21 % of 24- to 35-year-olds agreed that the moon landings were staged, compared with 13% of over-55s.


Kaysing’s original queries are fuelling this. One is the fact that no stars are visible in the pictures; another is the lack of a blast crater under the landing module; a third is to do with the way the shadows fall. People who know what they are talking about have wasted hours explaining such “anomalies” (they are to do with, respectively, camera-exposure times, the way thrust works in a vacuum and the reflective qualities of moondust). Yet until his death in 2005, Kaysing maintained that the whole thing was a fraud, filmed in a TV studio. “It’s well documented that NASA was often badly managed and had poor quality control,” he told Wired in 1994. “But as of 1969, we could suddenly perform manned flight upon manned flight? With complete success? It’s just against all statistical odds.”

He was right about that at least. When the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 in October 1957 (followed one month later by Sputnik 2, containing Laika the dog), the US space programme was all but non-existent. NASA was founded in 1958 and managed to launch Alan Shepard into space in May 1961 – but when John F Kennedy announced that the US “should commit itself to achieve the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth”, it seemed a stretch. By the mid-60s, NASA was consuming more than 4% of the US federal budget, but while the Soviets were achieving more firsts – the first woman in space (1963), the first extra-vehicular activity, i.e. spacewalk (1965) – the Americans experienced various setbacks, including a launchpad fire that killed all three Apollo 1 astronauts.

If you have ever been to the Science Museum in London, you will know that the lunar module was basically made of tinfoil. Apollo 8 had orbited the moon in 1968, but, as Armstrong remarked, correcting course and landing on the moon was “far and away the most complex part of the flight”. He rated walking around on the surface one out of 10 for difficulty (despite the problems he had with the TV cable wrapping around his feet), “but I thought the lunar descent was probably a 13”.

That is until you compare it with the difficulty of maintaining a lie to the entire world for five decades without a single slip from any NASA employee. You would also have to imagine that 2019-era special effects were available to NASA in 1969 and not one of the 600 million TV viewers noticed anything amiss. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is a decent indication of what Hollywood special effects could do at the time – and it’s extremely shonky. It genuinely was simpler to film on location.

If we pass over “World war two bomber found on moon” – a Sunday Sport front page from 1988 – the moon-hoax theory entered the modern era in 2001, when Fox News broadcast a documentary called Did We Land on the Moon? Hosted by the X-Files actor Mitch Pileggi, it repackaged Kaysing’s arguments for a new audience. Launius, who was working at NASA at the time, recalls much banging of heads against consoles. “For many years, we refused to respond to this stuff. It wasn’t worth giving it a hearing. But when Fox News aired that so-called documentary – stating unequivocally ‘We haven’t landed on the moon’ – it really raised the level. We began to receive all kinds of questions.”

Most of the calls came not from conspiracists, but from parents and teachers. “People were saying: ‘My kid saw this, how do I respond?’ So, with some trepidation, Nasa put up a webpage and sent out some materials to teachers.”

A particular bugbear in the Fox News documentary was a poll claiming that 20% of Americans believed the moon landing was faked. Launius says that polls tend to put the figure at between 4% and 5%, but it’s easy to phrase poll questions to achieve a more eye-catching result. “Every time there’s a hearing in a serious periodical – even an offhand comment in a movie – it just seeds this stuff.” He cites a scene in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) in which a schoolteacher informs Matthew McConaughey’s character that the moon landings were hoaxed in order to win the propaganda war against the Soviet Union. “It’s a throwaway in the film. But it really did churn up a big response.”


Oliver Morton, the author of The Moon: A History for the Future, believes the persistence of the moon hoax isn’t surprising. Given an implausible event for which there is lots of evidence (Apollo 11) and a plausible event for which there is zero evidence (the moon hoax), some people will opt for the latter. “The point of Apollo was to show how powerful the American government was in terms of actually doing things,” he says. “The point of moon-hoax theory is to show how powerful the American government was in terms of making people believe things that weren’t true.” But the hoax narrative was only really possible as Apollo never led anywhere – there were no further missions after 1972. “As the American mind turns back to paranoia in the 1970s, it becomes more pleasing to believe in this,” he says.

James Bond has to take a small share of the blame. In Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Sean Connery busts into a NASA facility by way of a Las Vegas casino. A chase ensues across a film set dressed up to look like the moon, complete with earthbound astronauts. But here it’s more like a visual joke, a way of justifying a moon buggy chase across the Nevada desert. By the time of Peter Hyams’ Kaysingian conspiracy thriller Capricorn One (1978), the idea that the government was fooling everyone was no laughing matter. Here it’s about a Mars mission that goes wrong. The authorities opt to fake it and kill the astronauts (one of whom is played by OJ Simpson) to prevent them revealing the truth. In the post-Watergate era, the idea that the government could lie on this scale had become much more plausible.

Apollo marked a turning point between the optimism of the 60s and the disappointments of the 70s. “We can put a man on the moon so why can’t we do X?” became a common refrain. As Morton says: “Yes, the government can set itself an extraordinary goal and go on to achieve it, but that doesn’t mean it can win the war in Vietnam, or clean up the inner cities, or cure cancer or any of the things that Americans might have actually wanted more. The idea that the government isn’t really powerful, it just pretends it is – you can see how it feeds into the moon hoax.”

Moon-hoax theories tend to be about what didn’t happen rather than what did. Conspiracists are divided on whether the earlier Apollo, Mercury, Gemini and Atlas missions were also fakes, whether Laika or Yuri Gagarin ever made it into space, and what role Kubrick played. But while the first generation of lunar conspiracists were motivated by anger, these days it’s more likely to be boredom. The line between conspiracy and entertainment is far more blurry.

Still, while irritating for those involved – Buzz Aldrin punched moon conspiracist Bart Sibrel in 2002 – in one sense the conspiracy idea is harmless, at least compared with misinformation about vaccinations or mass murders. Morton notes that it is one of the few conspiracy theories that isn’t tainted by antisemitism. Nor does it seem to be one to which Donald Trump, the ultimate product of news-as-entertainment, subscribes. The dynamics of the modern internet have clearly not helped: look up Apollo videos on YouTube and before long moon-hoax documentaries start lining up in the autoplay queue. But there is little evidence that Russian disinformation agents have spread moon conspiracies as they have anti-vaxxing propaganda, for example. Although, if you think about it, it would make perfect sense for them to do so: a neat way of restoring Russian prestige while establishing continuity between the cold war and the information wars.

Then again, the USSR had the means to expose the Americans at the time; it was listening in. “We were there at Soviet military base 32103,” the Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov recently recalled. “I swear to God we sat there with our fingers crossed. We hoped the guys would make it. We wanted this to happen. We knew those who were on board and they knew us, too.”

The growing strength of the hoax theory is “one of the things that happens as time recedes and these events are lost”, laments Launius. “We’ve seen it with the second world war and the Holocaust. A lot of the witnesses are passing from the scene and it’s easy for people to deny that it took place. Who is left to counteract things that are untrue? Mythologies develop and become the dominant theme.”



Perhaps the hardest thing to believe in is the idea that humans might have accomplished something transcendent – something that even brought out the best in Nixon. “Because of what you have done, the heavens have become part of man’s world,” he said in his telephone call to Aldrin and Armstrong on the moon. “And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquillity, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquillity to Earth.”

We have less faith in ourselves these days. Most moon conspiracists treat the whole thing as a joke, a rabbit hole to go down from time to time. Perhaps if NASA returns to the moon – possibly as early as 2024, depending on Trump’s whims – it will be replaced in time by Mars conspiracies.

Still, you could see the persistence of the moon conspiracy as a compliment to the Apollo scientists. “In a way, the moon hoaxers are taking the Apollo missions far more seriously than most people do,” says Morton. “It’s a sign that they really care. They think that Apollo really mattered.” The truth is that the moon landings didn’t really change life on Earth. Not yet anyway.

• This article was amended on 10 and 11 July 2019. An earlier version said that NASA launched Alan Shepard into orbit in May 1961. However, that flight was suborbital. In addition, NASA was consuming more than 4% of the US federal budget in the 1960s, not more than 4% of the country’s GDP as an earlier version said. This has been corrected.https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/10/one-giant-lie-why-so-many-people-still-think-the-moon-landings-were-faked


Appendix 3Source evaluation checklist

Web source 1 Web source 2 Web source 3

Yes No Yes No Yes No

Authority

Is it clear who wrote the content?

Is the author an expert on the subject and do they have a renowned reputation?

Can the contact information be verified?

Does the domain extension match the content?

Accuracy

Do you believe the content is true?

Is the content reinforcing similar ideas from reputable sources?

Does the text use correct grammar, spelling and sentence structure?

Are the supporting images real?

Objectivity

Is the information presented in a balanced or objective way?

Are other opposing views presented?

Is all the information need to make a judgement evident?

Currency

Is there evidence of when this was written?

Is there evidence to see when it was last updated?

Do all the links still work?

Other

.

.

.Adapted from doe.k12.de.us iKeepSafe and Google Inc.


Appendix 4Scavenger hunt for credibility

Reference: Delaware Department of Education Digital Citizenship class 1: Becoming an online sleuth



Appendix 5Identifying bias in texts: text comparison

Text 1 Text 2

‘Coles says these toys promote healthy eating. I say that’s rubbish’ by Carla Liuzzo, 2020. Published in The Conversation.

As a parent, I find it so frustrating to take my children shopping, reusable bags in hand, only to be offered plastic toys at the checkout. It’s an incredibly confusing message to be sending kids. And it seems Coles is confused too.

Last year the company stated it wants to be “Australia’s most sustainable supermarket”. But with last week’s relaunch of “Stikeez” – yet another plastic collectables range off the back of their Little Shop promotion – Coles is showing dogged commitment to unsustainable marketing.

Stikeez are 24 plastic characters (plus four rare ones) in the shape of fruit and vegetables, aimed at encouraging kids to eat healthy food.

After petitions against previous plastic “mini” campaigns by Coles and Woolworths, Coles will make the Stikeez characters returnable in store for recycling.

But this misses the point. Coles is generating waste needlessly in the first place. Surely it’s time to move beyond plastic freebies as a way of boosting sales?

Irresponsible marketing

We have a waste problem in this country. Australians are the third highest producers of waste per person, after the US and Canada. Some councils are having to stockpile plastic, there’s a federal plan to phase out exporting waste overseas and we have high rates of contamination of recyclables.

‘Coles launches ‘Stikeez’ campaign to get kids eating fruit and veg’ by Veronika Hleborodova, 2019. Published in canstarblue.com.au

Move over Little Shop, there’s a new collectables craze at Coles – Stikeez!

After the supermarket chain’s wildly successful Little Shop campaign last winter, featuring miniature versions of 30 popular grocery staples such as Weet-Bix, Vegemite, Milo and Nutella, followed by a Christmas edition in December, Coles is at it again.

This time around the promotion focuses on healthy eating, partnering with the Healthy Kids Association in an effort to influence kids to eat more fresh produce.

From Wednesday, February 13, customers can receive one free ‘Stikeez’ for every $30 spent in Coles stores, online, or at Coles Express.

With 24 Stikeez to collect, shoppers can expect to pay a minimum of $720 for the full set.

…

“It’s a really great campaign, which is celebrating fruit and veg and bringing them to life, so that kids and their parents can be encouraged to eat more fruit and veggies.”

Author profile:

Carla Liuzzo

Senior Lecturer, School of Business, Queensland University of Technology

Carla Liuzzo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment

Author profile:

Veronika Hleborodova is a Canstar Blue journalist covering health, home and lifestyle. She has a double degree in Media & Communication and Business from the Queensland University of Technology and enjoys keeping up with latest tech-savvy trends to help Australian consumers stay ahead of the curve. Whether it's the latest news on supermarkets and collectables or exploring brand new innovations within the appliance space such as smart features and Wi-Fi connectivity, Veronika’s aim is to ensure consumers are getting value for their money.


https://www.change.org/p/coles-mini-collectables-are-more-plastic-waste-stop-now

Appendix 6Identifying bias guideBiased information will attempt to change your mind or view on a concept; it is important to recognise these attempts in texts.

Compare texts 1 and 2 for evidence of bias

Bias evidence Text 1 Text 2Language

Formal language Hyperbole Emotional language Generalisations or

sweeping statements Does the vocabulary

create a positive or negative impressions?

Is there high modality?

Content

Does it contain facts? Does it contain opinions? Is the tone positive or

negative? Omitted information What other information is

needed? One sided Non-objective view of

alternative perspective

Other considerations

What do you know about the author?

Experts - who are they? Profit – who is profiting

financially from this text Political leanings What will the author gain

from this text?

Your opinion: .

.

.

.


Documents

Reading: evaluating sources Stage 5€¦ · Web viewWhen the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 in October 1957 (followed one month later by Sputnik 2, containing Laika the dog), the US