Do your students have trouble refuting or supporting the so-called "facts" they find? Do they believe anything as long as it's in print? Use this lesson to help teach your students how to distinguish between accurate and erroneous information.
Note: There is also an accompanying assignment to this lesson, Fact or Fantasy: Confirm or Deny.

INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES

• Recognize bias in print sources
• Validate or refute claims made in print sources

INSTRUCTOR PREPARATION
Note: Ideally you could set aside 2 classes for this lesson.

1. Browse FAIR (Fairness in Accuracy and Reporting) at http://www.fair.org/. This is a national media watch group that claims to offer well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship. FAIR's mission is to scrutinize media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. This site may help you find a good examples of statements to refute or confirm.

2. Consider using U of M Library guides and handouts for this lesson plan and assignment. Contact the U of M Librarian that is responsible for providing instructional support for your subject for suggestions on which guides are most useful. A list of Librarians who do instruction for Humanities and Social Sciences subjects is available at http://wilson.lib.umn.edu/lrn-librarians.html. If you are in other disciplines, send an inquiry to InfoPoint at http://infopoint.lib.umn.edu.

STUDENT PREPARATION

1. Have students complete QuickStudy Module 6: Finding Facts, Reviews and More, and QuickStudy Module 7: Evaluating Sources.

2. Have students read "The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh Debates Reality" from the FAIR site at http://www.fair.org/press-releases/limbaugh-debates-reality.html.

3. Ask students to find a statement in some popular medium (television, magazines, radio, newspapers) that they will later need to prove or disprove using library resources.

4. Have students discuss "The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh Debates Reality" and highlight the format ("Limbaugh says" and "Reality is"). Point out that in the "Reality" paragraph, the sources are clearly cited.

   EXAMPLE:

   LIMBAUGH: "The worst of all of this is the lie that condoms really protect against AIDS. The condom failure rate can be as high as 20 percent. Would you get on a plane -- or put your children on a plane -- if one of five passengers would be killed on the flight? Well, the statistic holds for condoms, folks." (Ought to Be, p. 135)

   REALITY: A one in five AIDS risk for condom users? Not true, according to Dr. Joseph Kelaghan, who evaluates contraceptives for the National Institutes of Health. "There is substantive evidence that condoms prevent transmission if used consistently and properly," he said. He pointed to a nearly two-year study of couples in which one partner was HIV-positive. Among the 123 couples who used condoms regularly, there wasn't a single new infection (AP, 8/29/93).

5. Arrange to have a librarian give students an overview of the resources available (see under "Instructor Preparation"). After students have proved or disproved their statements (citing their sources as in the Limbaugh model) have them give mini-presentations on their statements and how they proved or disproved them.

6. Use this discussion as a jumping off point to discuss evaluation of resources.

7. Distribute assignment, Fact or Fantasy: Confirm or Deny.

Adapted from the University of Arizona Library

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