Choosing & Using Sources: Instructor Resources

Pre-Class Preparation

• Review the handout for this activity.
• Review In-Class Procedure below.
• Read Choosing and Using Sources, Chapter 6, Evaluating Sources, “Degree of Bias,” which students will be referring to on their devices to make their evaluations.
• Consider assigning students to read before class Choosing and Using Sources, Chapter 6, Evaluating Sources, “Degree of Bias,” which students will be referring to on their devices to make their evaluations.
• Prepare to introduce the session, using your own remarks or In-Class Procedure below, if it is helpful.
• Evaluate the source’s degree of bias yourself.
• Using In-Class Procedure, plan your discussion of the groups’ evaluations.
• Print 1 copy per student and 1 for yourself of Handout 6C-1.
• Make sure you have the “grades” students gave the source for Web neighborhood and author and publisher so you can re-display them today.
• Download and perhaps print In-Class Procedure so you can take it with you to class.

In-Class Procedure

1. 1. While students work, draw this matrix with as many group columns as you need. (Group columns need to be wide enough for only 1 capital letter.) Fill in the “grades” for Web neighborhood and author and publisher that were posted earlier.
   2. On the board, write the URL for the source you selected.
   3. Point to the source’s URL you put on the board and remind students that they have already evaluated this source’s web neighborhood and author and publisher and how those factors contribute to or do not contribute to the source’s credibility. Today they will be evaluating the same source’s degree of bias.
   4. Ask students to get into the same group they were in for Activities 6A and 6B. (If some students are absent, it will not matter.)
   5. Pass out Handout 6C-1 to every student.
   6. Suggest that if one or more group members did not bring an electronic device, those within the group who did should share their device(s).
   7. Tell students that they will have only about 5 minutes to do their evaluations after reading the handout, so they should get started quickly.
      

      Factor	Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5	Group 6	Group 7
      Web Neighborhood
      Author and Publisher
      Degree of Bias

       

   8. After about 5 minutes, ask any reporter who hasn’t reported his/her group’s grade to put it on the board.
   9. Once all groups’ degree of bias “grades” are on the board, compare the “grades” for the source across groups. Remind students of what the “grades” stand for (A=Very Acceptable, B= Good, but could be better, C= OK in a pinch, D= Marginal, and F= Unacceptable). Point out the variation or uniformity across groups. Ask some questions, such as what made any group member question the source’s credibility for degree of bias and subsequently give it a low “grade.” If two groups gave very different grades, ask group members to explain how that happened—did one group notice something that the other group did not? Or, maybe something both groups saw was more important to one group than the other?
   10. Let students know that evaluating a source will get faster and easier for them the more they do it. If you’re going to uses Activities 6C, 6D, and/or 6E, tell them that they will get more practice evaluating the other factors.
   11. Before closing this activity, suggest that any students who haven’t recorded the URL for Choosing & Using Sources do so now. That way they can use that free ebook any time in the future when they need information about working with sources.
   12. If you are going to do Activities 6C, 6D, and/or 6E in upcoming classes with these students, take a photo of the grades on the board or otherwise record them so you’ll have them for a comparison of grades across factors.

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   Relevant Choosing & Using Sources Chapters:

   Chapter 6, Evaluating Sources.