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Teacher Resources by Grade
|1st - 2nd||3rd - 4th|
|5th - 6th||7th - 8th|
|9th - 10th||11th - 12th|
Hoax or No Hoax? Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation
|Grades||9 – 12|
|Lesson Plan Type||Standard Lesson|
|Estimated Time||Four 60-minute sessions|
Research has shown that online reading requires not only traditional comprehension strategies, but also new digital- and media-literacy strategies. In this lesson, students learn how to use these comprehension strategies involving a sequence of planning, predicting, monitoring, and evaluating. Once students learn the strategies, they read a variety of hoax websites and evaluate the content. They then demonstrate their learning through the creation of outlines for hoax websites.
Compare & Contrast Map: Using this tool, students can easily compare and contrast a "real" website from a "fake" website.
Coiro, J., & Dobler, E. (2007). Exploring the online reading comprehension strategies used by sixth-grade skilled readers to search for and locate information on the Internet. Reading Research Quarterly, 42(2), 214–257.
- Reading comprehension on the Internet requires both similar and more complex comprehension applications of traditional text-based strategies, including the use of prior knowledge, inferential reasoning strategies, and self-regulated reading processes.
- The authors recommend the following repeating pattern of self-regulated reading for websites: planning, predicting, monitoring, and evaluating.
McNabb, M.L. (2006). Literacy learning in networked classrooms: Using the Internet with middle-level students. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
- Authentic research opportunities for students should include exposure to unreliable information sources.
- Through website evaluation and the identification of "hoax" sites, teachers can guide students to assess the credibility and authenticity of information on the Internet.
Silverblatt, A. (2000). Media literacy in an interactive age. Reading Online, 4(3)