News Literacy: The Keys to Combating Fake News by Michelle Luhtala and Jacquelyn Whiting

Information literacy, fake news, critical thinking, problem solving—all hot topics in education, not to mention the news, politics, and social media. This is our expertise! School librarians have the opportunity to be the leaders in the school in curating sources and solutions that can form collaborative answers to these essential educational issues.

The authors of News Literacy: The Keys to Combating Fake News bring broad experiences and expertise to help us do just that. Michelle Luhtala is the library department chair at New Canaan High School and also facilitates an online learning community for nearly 12,000 library and educational technology professionals. Jacquelyn Whiting is the Innovation and Technology Specialist for Cooperative Educational Services in Trumbull, CT, and is a Google Certified Innovator who presents frequently on student and educator voice and innovative educational technology practices. Their book is an ideal vehicle for a book study group of school librarians and other educators faced with the problem of how to teach students to be critical users of information in a world filled with misinformation. Though this title is targeted to librarians in secondary schools, the information is valuable to all school librarians and teachers and could also be helpful in book studies for classroom teachers or even in collaborative groups of all types of educators.

News Literacy: The Keys to Combating Fake News provides a rich opportunity to bring your librarians (and perhaps the whole school community!) together around an essential topic. You might organize in-person meetings to discuss and reflect on chapters, set up virtual check-ins to brainstorm ways to integrate a culture of information literacy throughout the school, or integrate some of the suggested activities into a PD day. Whatever tactic you take, the opportunity to come together around a common resource can be invaluable in allowing school librarians to remain on the cutting edge of their profession and to understand and adapt current education topics to their practice.

In this guide, you'll find the chapter "What the Research Says About Students' Media Literacy," as well as discussion questions and activity suggestions for each chapter of the book. Want to learn more about the topic? Check out the Additional Resources section, where you can also get information about custom PD options with the book's authors.