Become a discerning digital citizen – how to spot fake news

Key message

Jenny Luca, Head of Digital Learning and Practice, Wesley College, explores the challenges of helping young people to become discerning digital citizens.

What can educators do?

So what can we as educators do to help our young people become discerning digital citizens? How can we help them grasp the workings of social networks, the power of algorithms, and understand the effects a personalised stream of content may have on shaping their thought processes?

To start with, it’s imperative that we acknowledge that it is important to find space or place within school curriculum to address how we help our students to become discerning digital citizens. We’ve entered new territory, and it’s territory our profession needs to understand in order to impart learning to our students.

I’d posit that there are many adults with a lack of knowledge about the workings of the internet, and many existing teachers would fall into that category. Hopefully your school community has a Head of Teaching and Learning actively seeking ways and means for discerning digital citizenry to become embedded with the curriculum structure and a committed teacher librarian in your midst who is keeping abreast of change. Information professionals of this calibre are key to assisting teaching staff with the knowledge required. Many would leap at the opportunity to work in a co-teaching capacity with classroom teachers to impart the message, especially if it can be interwoven into existing curriculum offerings.

The Australian Curriculum provides a passage with the General capabilities. Critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability, and ethical understanding all lend themselves as key tenets of what it takes to be a discerning digital citizen.

Creative teachers, who are shaping their curriculum with thought being given to these capabilities, find ways to weave discussion into the threads of their curriculum content. When I taught English classes, I would make way for important discussion about topics affecting young people’s lives. I would often begin a class with what would be considered something ‘off topic’. What this did was frame the lesson - students would be encouraged to think and share, and this seeded the climate for the learning that would take place that was ‘on topic’.

Our profession is a human one - finding time within content-heavy curriculum to build relationships and assist our young people to navigate new territory is never time wasted.

Behind the News (BtN), the ABC TV programme aimed at school children from upper primary to lower secondary, has made a really useful video about fake news and how to spot it. Common Sense Media from the United States also has a very helpful post about spotting fake news.

I’d encourage all educators to take a look at the Common Sense Media site. Their K-12 digital citizenship curriculum scope and sequence can be easily adapted to Australian schools. It provides teachers with lesson plans, support materials and resources that parents can use. All resources within their curriculum are based on the research of Dr Howard Gardner and the Good Play Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

There is an enormous amount being shared to help people grapple with the need to become more discerning in their analysis of web content. I’ve listed some useful posts below that can help you gain more understanding and find resources that may assist you in imparting the message to students.

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Additional resources

Related resources

Curriculum and syllabus links

NSW Syllabus outcomes

English S2

EN2-4A Uses an increasing range of skills, strategies and knowledge to fluently read, view and comprehend a range of texts on increasingly challenging topics in different media and technologies
EN2-11D Responds to and composes a range of texts that express viewpoints of the world similar to and different from their own

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English S3

EN3-3A Uses an integrated range of skills, strategies and knowledge to read, view and comprehend a wide range of texts in different media and technologies
EN3-5B Discusses how language is used to achieve a widening range of purposes for a widening range of audiences and contexts
EN3-8D Identifies and considers how different viewpoints of their world, including aspects of culture, are represented in texts

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English S4

EN4-1A Responds to and composes texts for understanding, interpretation, critical analysis, imaginative expression and pleasure
EN4-2A Effectively uses a widening range of processes, skills, strategies and knowledge for responding to and composing texts in different media and technologies
EN4-6C Identifies and explains connections between and among texts
EN4-7D Demonstrates understanding of how texts can express aspects of their broadening world and their relationships within it

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English S5

EN5-1A Responds to and composes increasingly sophisticated and sustained texts for understanding, interpretation, critical analysis, imaginative expression and pleasure
EN5-2A Effectively uses and critically assesses a wide range of processes, skills, strategies and knowledge for responding to and composing a wide range of texts in different media and technologies
EN5-6C Investigates the relationships between and among texts
EN5-7D Understands and evaluates the diverse ways texts can represent personal and public worlds
EN5-8D Questions, challenges and evaluates cultural assumptions in texts and their effects on meaning

Australian Curriculum content descriptions

English S2

ACELY1675 Identify the point of view in a text and suggest alternative points of view
ACELY1678 Identify the audience and purpose of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts
ACELY1680 Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to evaluate texts by drawing on a growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features
ACELY1686 Identify and explain language features of texts from earlier times and compare with the vocabulary, images, layout and content of contemporary texts
ACELY1690 Identify characteristic features used in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the text
ACELY1692 Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning to expand content knowledge, integrating and linking ideas and analysing and evaluating texts

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English S3

ACELA1501 Understand that patterns of language interaction very across social contexts and types of texts and that they help to signal social roles and relationships
ACELA1504 Understand how texts vary in purpose, structure and topic as well as the degree of formality
ACELT1795 Use metalanguage to describe the effects of ideas, text structures and language features on particular audiences
ACELY1701 Identify and explain characteristic text structures and language features use in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the text
ACELT1613 Make connections between students’ own experiences and those of characters and events represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts
ACELY1708 Compare texts including media texts that represent ideas and events in different ways, explaining the effects of the different approaches
ACELY1711 Analyse how text structures and language features work together to meet the purpose of a text
ACELY1801 Analyse strategies authors use to influence readers

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English S4

ACELA1528 Understand the way language evolves to reflect a changing world, particularly in response to the use of new technology for presenting texts and communicating
ACELA1782 Understand how language is used to evaluate texts and how evaluations about a text can be substantiated by reference to the text and other sources
ACELA1763 Understand that the coherence of more complex texts relies on devices that signal text structure and guide readers (and viewers, etc)
ACELT1619 Identify and explore ideas and viewpoints about events, issues and characters represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts
ACELT1621 Compare the ways that language and images are used to create character, and to influence emotions and opinions in different types of texts
ACELT1803 Discuss aspects of texts, for example their aesthetic and social value, using relevant and appropriate metalanguage
ACELY1765 Analyse and explain the effect of technological innovations on texts, particularly media texts
ACELY1721 Analyse and explain the ways text structures and language features shape meaning and vary according to audience and purpose
ACELY1723 Use comprehension strategies to interpret, analyse and synthesise ideas and information, critiquing ideas and issues from a variety of textual sources
ACELY1724 Compare the text structures and language features of multimodal texts, explaining how they combine to influence audiences
ACELA1543 Analyse how the text structures and language features of persuasive texts, including media texts, vary according to the medium and mode of communication
ACELA1548 Investigate how visual and multimodal texts allude to or draw on other texts or images to enhance and layer meaning
ACELT1626 Explore the ways that ideas and viewpoints in literary texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts may reflect or challenge the values of individuals and groups.
ACELT1628 Understand and explain how combinations of words and images in texts are used to represent particular groups in society, and how texts position readers in relation to those groups
ACELT1807 Recognise and explain differing viewpoints about the world, cultures, individual people and concerns represented in texts
ACELT1768 Experiment with particular language features drawn from different types of texts, including combinations of language and visual choices to create new texts
ACELY1729 Analyse and explain how language has evolved over time and how technology and the media have influenced language use and forms of communication
ACELY1732 Analyse and evaluate the ways that text structures and language features vary according to the purpose of the text and the ways that referenced sources add authority to a text
ACELY1733 Apply increasing knowledge of vocabulary, text structures and language features to understand the content of texts
ACELY1734 Use comprehension strategies to interpret and evaluate texts by reflecting on the validity of content and the credibility of sources, including finding evidence in the text for the author’s point of view
ACELY1735 Explore and explain the ways authors combine different modes and media in creating texts, and the impact of these choices on the viewer/listener

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English S5

ACELA1553 Understand that authors innovate with text structures and language for specific purposes and effects
ACELA1770 Compare and contrast the use of cohesive devices in texts, focusing on how they serve to signpost ideas, to make connections and to build semantic associations between ideas
ACELT1635 Explore and reflect on personal understanding of the world and significant human experience gained from interpreting various representations of life matters in texts
ACELT1772 Analyse text structures and language features of literary texts, and make relevant comparisons with other texts
ACELY1739 Analyse how the construction and interpretation of texts, including media texts, can be influenced by cultural perspectives and other texts
ACELY1742 Interpret, analyse and evaluate how different perspectives of issue, event, situation, individuals or groups are constructed to serve specific purposes in texts
ACELY1744 Use comprehension strategies to interpret and analyse texts, comparing and evaluating representations of an event, issue, situation or character in different texts
ACELY1745 Explore and explain the combinations of language and visual choices that authors make to present information, opinions and perspectives in different texts
ACELA1564 Understand how language use can have inclusive and exclusive social effects, and can empower or disempower people
ACELA1565 Understand that people’s evaluations of texts are influenced by their value systems, the context and the purpose and mode of communication
ACELA1566 Compare the purposes, text structures and language features of traditional and contemporary texts in different media
ACELA1572 Evaluate the impact on audiences of different choices in the representation of still and moving images
ACELT1639 Compare and evaluate a range of representations of individuals and groups in different historical, social and cultural contexts
ACELT1641 Analyse and explain how text structures, language features and visual features of texts and the context in which texts are experienced may influence audience response
ACELY1749 Analyse and evaluate how people, cultures, places, events, objects and concepts are represented in texts, including media texts, through language, structural and/or visual choices
ACELY1752 Identify and analyse implicit or explicit values, beliefs and assumptions in texts and how these are influenced by purposes and likely audience
ACELY1754 Use comprehension strategies to compare and contrast information within and between texts, identifying and analysing embedded perspectives, and evaluating supporting evidence