Do You Skim?

Most of us skim to get the basic meaning without reading every word. This may work well when trying to spot keywords in articles or Web pages, but when skimming replaces reading the consequences can be unexpected.

• If I skim the news, I may know a detail or two but not understand the context or relationships on which events hinge.
• If I skim my latest Bill Bryson travel book, I will know a few things about a few places, but I may miss out on his experience of the journey.
• If I skim my wife's emails to me, I am bound to miss something that I will need to know. This happens frequently.

If I do this all the time, my ability to read deeply may be altered. At least this is the message in a new article by Marianne Wolf entitled, Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound. Understanding the complexities of prose or legal documents or other professionally authored works cannot be accomplished by skimming. It takes a slower read and can take some effort.

I am happy to see my granddaughter curl up for extended periods of time with Harry Potter books.  Maybe she's skimming, but I think she's enjoying the experience too much for that to be the case.

We teach skimming to speed up the keyword recognition process. But when it comes to evaluation, a slower read is necessary--otherwise, how can you detect bias or factual inconsistencies? Skimming is perfect for consumers of fake news: don't read too much and don't think too hard about what you read.

I encourage you to read the full article.  I think I'll spend more time seeing how catty Bill Bryson can be.

Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound.

Keyword Targets

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, here's a glimpse inside the Fall 2018 Full Circle Resource Kit. As an instructional and assessment technique, create a wall poster of an archery target, or just buy one. Use sticky notes for each word in a student's query. Some words are bulls eyes: Proper Nouns and numbers. Others land on the target, coming close: nouns. The rest are likely to miss altogether, unless they are accompanied by a noun or number: verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, articles, conjunctions, prepositions and exclamation.

A graphic way to make this point is to place sticky notes on the target. It can also be used to provide feedback to students on the effectiveness of their queries.  For example, in the query, Who is the Latina Bronx Tarzan.... The first three keywords miss the target. The proper nouns, when used together, pinpoint the desired information, as shown below:

When one of the effective keywords is removed, however, the two remaining miss the information, coming close.

Next time your students try using complete sentences to search, the target exercise can get the point across that more words is less effective.

Access all the Kit resources with an annual school subscription for $249 (any number of students and staff can enroll for the same price).

Keyword Games

In the newest Full Circle Resource Kit (Fall 2018), the featured article is about using games to change search behaviors. Telling students not to use full sentences and pay attention to their keywords, while instructive, is not very effective.

Student success in searching isn't quite as bad as the illustration shown, but all it takes is a couple of queries to hit to target to satisfy a poor searcher.

We invented a simple search game that serves as a game-making structure to reinforce good search techniques. A Keyword Game is basically a riddle: Who Am I? Three clues are provided: Latina, Bronx, Tarzan. Most people can't guess the identity without using a search engine.

The combination of the terms is what makes them effective, plus they are very specific terms--two are proper nouns.

For more on the games, see the latest edition of the Full Circle Kits (accessible with a school subscription).

The real value in the games is for students to create their own keyword challenges. Using one of the prompts, "Who/What/Where/When am I?" the challenge is to find 3-5 keywords that can be entered into a search engine to reveal the answer. To do so successfully, students engage in these effective search techniques:

• Search with a few words (between two and five keywords)
• Include only effective keywords and unique combinations
• Avoid verbs, pronoun, articles, conjunctions, adverbs, adjectives (including complete sentences)

Have them play each others games to see whether they can be solved. If a set of clues doesn't work, this opens up an opportunity to understand what's wrong with the query.

By the way, the answer to the riddle above is Sonia Sotomayor. In Google there are other search results at the top of the list, but these don't answer the question because they don't contain all the keywords. This emphasizes critical reading to make sure the results match expectations.

Hard Conversations

Have you noticed if your students rely on alt-right internet sites as credible sources for their research papers?

In a survey of 200 teachers, Jennifer Rich (Rowan University) found  that 60% of middle and high school students turn to alt-right websites as sources for information.

"The students are using alt-right sites to write papers on topics that range from free speech and the Second Amendment to citizenship, immigration and the Holocaust." source: http://www.racismreview.com/blog/tag/information-literacy/

The alt-right sites most commonly reported by teachers include National Policy Institute, Radix Journal, American Renaissance, Taki’s Magazine and Voat.

Teachers added that "students find the information on these sites appealing but are unable to differentiate between fact and fiction."

Findings like this are not surprising given information consumers' inability to discern fake news--but it is an educational concern. It is one thing personally to own a liberal, conservative or other position, it's another to believe anything one reads as an objective fact. 

The article is worth reading because it raises the question, "what should teachers do about it?" Should they avoid uncomfortable discussions or meet them head on?

"It is reasonable to expect heated student disagreement.... This, then, opens up space to teach students how to engage in respectful and difficult conversations with one another."

Providing readings on two or more sides of an issue, then discussing them, is highly recommended. For more, read the article.

98% Gullibility?

"Only 2 per cent of children and young people can tell if a news story is real or fake, according to a survey published today."

The survey is from the  All-Party Parliamentary Group on Literacy and the National Literacy Trust.

Read more here: https://www.tes.com/news/pupils-lack-literacy-skills-spot-fake-news 

For resources to help students identify Fake News, visit https://21cif.com/fullcircle/fall2017/index.php (requires an annual membership). Free resources, start here: https://21cif.com/tutorials/micro/index.php

Summer Full Circle Resource Kit

Bias Detection is the newest Kit in the Full Circle series.

One of the most popular MicroModules on the Information Fluency site is Bias. Becoming sensitive to bias and knowing that not everything in print or images is neutral or objective is one way to prevent unguarded consumption of fake or distorted news. Bias can be hard to detect, especially when a reader finds it agreeable.

The Feature article examines a front page case where bias was overlooked, resulting in shooting up a pizzeria thought to be a front for pedophile sex abuse in Washington DC.

Curricular Connections provides a helpful checklist for identifying and discussing incidents of bias in non-fiction and images.

Six interactive examples of biased and unbiased articles and one image are packaged in the Assessment section to help students evaluate bias. A score of 80% accuracy indicates fluency in detecting bias.

The Kit requires a subscription, but for a limited time, the feature article is free.

https://21cif.com//fullcircle/summer2018/index.php

Spring 18 Full Circle Kit now available

The newest edition of the 21st Century Information Fluency Full Circle Kit focuses on Fact Checking.

This is part three of three in a series on Investigative Searching. Access to the Kit requires an annual membership.

All Kits

Spring '18 Contents

Feature Article: Fake News, Part Three

Researchers at MIT recently published their findings about the spread of false news on Twitter. There is still no substitute for investigative searching. 

Action Zone: Fact Checking Challenge

This Level 3 challenge may be used with the Assessment guide to check students' understanding of fact checking.

Curriculum: Mini Lessons

Using two Websites about fake news to create mini lessons on fake news and fact checking.

Assessment: Fact Checking and Secondary Searching

Five items to measure how well students know when to Fact Checking and how.