Literacy Today November/December 2018

Welcome to interactive presentation, created with Publuu. Enjoy the reading!

ecently, much attention has been placed on the need to help students develop

the ability to evaluate the credibility of online information. Students need such

an ability in order to be engaged citizens within a democratic-, information-,

and technology-based society as they research answers to both personal and

professional issues, a process that often occurs on the internet.

In online contexts, where anyone may publish what he or she wishes and little

information is vetted before it reaches readers, the ability to evaluate credibility

is especially important. So how should we go about teaching students to evaluate

credibility?

Although there are many skills, strategies, and habits of mind that go

into evaluation, developing the habits of mind—the ways of being, thinking,

and approaching text—can serve as the foundation from which to engage in

evaluation. Helping an online reader see herself as a “frontline judge,” responsible

for determining the extent to which information is credible, positions her to more

effectively evaluate.

Frontline judges of credibility take a critical stance, use flexible thinking,

triangulate evidence within and across texts, and view evaluation as an iterative

process. These habits of mind interact with and support one another throughout

the evaluation process.

Take a critical stance

Readers who take a critical stance, or attitude, toward text question the authority

of information as they use their own prior knowledge to construct meaning.

Thus, critical readers engage in parallel processes of questioning accuracy and

constructing meaning. Readers who take a critical stance analyze and evaluate

the meaning of text while considering how the author’s purpose, point of view,

and biases may impact this meaning, and while considering alternative points of

view. Because such a stance assumes that information is not necessarily all true,

or is not necessarily representative of multiple viewpoints, it allows readers to

approach text from a position of questioning credibility.

Use flexible thinking

Rather than viewing a single text as completely credible or completely

noncredible, viewing texts along a credibility continuum, as more or less

credible, may be helpful. Using flexible thinking also means considering multiple

credibility clues rather than forming conclusions about credibility on the basis of a

single clue alone.

For example, instead of concluding that a website is credible because it

uses a “.org” URL address—what we can think of as rigid, rather than flexible,

thinking—readers can use this as one of many clues. In fact, anyone may purchase

whatever type of URL address he or she wishes. Similarly, if readers generally

trust information from a certain publisher, they should still consider the

credibility of each new article they read, using multiple pieces of information from

Developing habits of mind for evaluating the credibility of

online information

FRONTLINE JUDGES

By Elena Forzani

Elena Forzani

(elenaforzani@gmail

.com), an ILA member since

2012, has taught students

in kindergarten through

12th grade. She is currently

an assistant professor in

literacy education at Boston

University in Massachusetts,

where her work focuses on

understanding how students

comprehend and evaluate

texts in online contexts.

Forzani is the recipient of the

ILA 2018 Timothy & Cynthia

Shanahan Outstanding

Dissertation Award.

LITERACY

LEADERSHIP

8

literacyworldwide.org | November/December 2018 | LITERACY TODAY

Made with Publuu - flipbook maker