Home

Library Instruction Lesson Plans

 

Articles About Library Instruction

 

Articles About Information Literacy

 

Links to Resources

 

Bibliography of Library Instruction Papers

 

Privacy Policy

 

Information Literacy Blog

This lesson is intended to show students how hard it is to verify information that is presented as true on the Web.  It makes use of a popular website, News of the Weird, which is located at:  http://www.newsoftheweird.com.

This lesson is intended for use with undergraduate students.  However, I believe it would work well with high school students as well.  For this lesson to work, the students will have to have access to a computer with Web access. 

Steps:

1.  Have the students visit the News of the Weird website.  Allow them to browse the most recent posting.  Give the students several minutes to laugh and enjoy the news reports they find.

2.  Discuss several of the stories reported.  Ask the students if they think the stories are true.  Have the students explain their reasoning.

3.  Have the students break up into groups of three people.  (This can be varied as needed but groups of three work best.)  Assign each group one of the news stories.  Ask the group to use the Web to verify that the story is true.

4.  Students will discover quickly that the majority of the hits that they find on the story will be references to the print copy of the News of the Weird which is carried by many newspapers.  Ask the students if the appearance of the News of the Weird in printed form in newspapers proves that the stories are true.

5.  If you have access to it, show the students how to use Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe.  This will allow students to track down wire service reports of news stories.  Many of the News of the Weird stories can be verified in this way.

6.  Let the students know that the News of the Weird is a credible source.  However, it is a good example of how difficult it can be to track down and verify the accuracy of what is found on the Web.

7.  Have the students visit an urban legends site.  The site at http://www.urbanlegends.com is good.  Pick an example from the site in advance and discuss it.  Use the information given at the site to explain how it is know that the stories presented are urban legends.

8.  Discuss the unrefereed nature of the Web and how easy it is for bad information to circulate.  Discuss how hard it was to verify information from the News of the Weird website.  Use this discussion to explain the importance of libraries, librarians, and research collections.

Good luck.