This assessment from the Stanford History Education Group gauges whether students can source and contextualize a document. Students must first examine an interview excerpt on a race riot in Nashville during the Civil Rights Movement, then determine which facts can help them evaluate the interview's reliability. Strong students will be able to explain how the the gap in time between the riot and the interview (Fact 2) and that Cleaver was not present for the riot (Fact 3) make the account less reliable.

This lesson introduces students to the work of historians and to the historical figure Biddy Mason, an African American woman who lived in Los Angeles in the 19th century. Students practice sourcing and contextualization as they investigate three historical documents to answer the question: Who was Biddy Mason?

Note: This lesson was designed with upper elementary school students in mind but can be used with a wide range of students as an introduction to the field of history.

We developed this lesson as part of a partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District to create lessons about African American history in L.A. Although Biddy Mason is a lesser-known historical figure and her story is exceptional, studying her life offers insights into various national historical topics, including enslavement, westward expansion, and the long African American freedom struggle.

In this lesson, students read a passage on Black Power from a popular textbook. Students then examine four historical documents to complicate the textbook’s description and answer the historical question: What was the Black Power Movement in Los Angeles?

In the aftermath of the Civil War, African-American leaders debated different plans for achieving racial equality. Booker T. Washington believed the initial focus should be on educating African Americans. W. E. B. Du Bois insisted that achieving equal rights was essential. In this lesson, students read a speech of Washington’s and a selection from Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk to consider how their philosophies compared.

The summer of 1919 saw over 20 race riots break out across the United States. Chicago was the site of particularly high violence. In this lesson, students deliberate the origins of the Chicago race riots by exploring five documents (both primary and secondary) that reflect different social, cultural, and economic causes.

The Problem: When evidence is attractively presented, convincingly stated, or aligns with our beliefs, it can be tempting to accept it without stopping to ask whether the evidence comes from a trustworthy source or directly supports the claims being made. When evidence takes the form of statistics or infographics, it can be particularly tempting to accept it without fully evaluating it.
This lesson gives students a chance to practice evaluating evidence based on its reliability and relevance. Students work in groups to evaluate several examples of online evidence and engage in class discussions about the strength of the evidence.

Note: Civic Online Reasoning is motivated by three driving questions: Who's behind the information, What's the evidence and What do other sources say? This lesson is an introduction to one of the main concepts. Registration is required and free.

The Problem: Claims and evidence flow rapidly online. We aid in the spread of misinformation if we don’t ensure that a claim or evidence is accurate before we share it. Luckily, the internet also allows us to check claims and evidence by consulting other sources. Although verification takes time, it helps to ensure that the information we read, use, and share is trustworthy.

This short lesson will introduce students to the importance of checking what other sources say through a relatively straightforward example. Students practice evaluating a claim made on social media by clicking on the provided link to see if the argument in that source matches the claim in the post.

Note: Civic Online Reasoning is motivated by three driving questions: Who's behind the information, What's the evidence and What do other sources say? This lesson is an introduction to one of the main concepts. Registration is required and free.

The Problem: Wikipedia contains a vast supply of information and is the 5th most trafficked website in the world. Still, many teachers advise students against using it. If students learn to use Wikipedia wisely, it can be a powerful resource for lateral reading, verifying claims, and a starting point for research.

This lesson introduces students to Wikipedia’s standard of verifiability, which requires article authors to provide reliable citations to support claims they make. By following these citations, students can verify the claims in Wikipedia and locate a variety of reliable resources. Students practice verifying claims on Wikipedia by following its citations.

Note: Civic Online Reasoning is motivated by three driving questions: Who's behind the information, What's the evidence and What do other sources say? This lesson is an introduction to one of the main concepts. Registration is required and free.

The Problem: Online videos are easy to create and distribute. Evidence presented via video is becoming an increasingly popular way to support claims online. However, videos can be especially challenging to evaluate effectively. Too often, we are convinced by what we see (or think we see) and do not carefully consider how the video could misrepresent its subject.

This short lesson helps students practice analyzing video evidence. Students complete a task that asks them to evaluate a video that makes a claim and supports it with selectively edited video evidence. They then read and discuss an article about the video. Then they watch an unedited version of the video to practice skills for analyzing video evidence.

Note: Civic Online Reasoning is motivated by three driving questions: Who's behind the information, What's the evidence and What do other sources say? This lesson is an introduction to one of the main concepts. Registration is required and free.

The Problem: Photographs and other images circulate rapidly online and are often persuasive forms of evidence. It can be difficult to determine the accuracy of these images and it is often tempting to take these images at face value. If we trust images without verification, we risk believing false claims and narratives.

This short lesson will introduce students to a strategy for learning more about online images: the reverse image search. Students can use this tool to learn more about an image, including where it has been posted online and what (if any) stories have been written about it. Students practice this strategy in groups.

Note: Civic Online Reasoning is motivated by three driving questions: Who's behind the information, What's the evidence and What do other sources say? This lesson is an introduction to one of the main concepts. Registration is required and free.

This lesson introduces click restraint, a strategy that helps students resist the urge to click on the first search result they receive in a search engine. Students learn to scan the results they receive to make an informed choice about which result to choose first.

Teacher materials, Student materials, and Presentation slides are included in this lesson.

Using primary sources related to the official proclamation of Columbus Day as a holiday at the national level, this activity asks students to analyze the documents (official proclamation and a newspaper advertisement) to determine why President Harrison chose to declare it as a holiday. Accessing the lesson/document does require setting up free account.

Too often, archival photos are not analyzed as historical sources. Instead, they are treated as windows into the past. This lesson introduces students to reasoning about photographs as historical evidence through 4 activities. Students are first given an opportunity to practice thinking historically with a familiar classroom scene, then examine different historical photographs of African Americans in Los Angeles.

This lesson introduces students to lateral reading, a strategy for investigating who's behind an unfamiliar online source by leaving the webpage and opening a new browser tab to see what trusted websites say about the unknown source. Students watch the teacher model lateral reading and then have a chance to practice the strategy to determine who is behind a website and, ultimately, whether that website is trustworthy.

Note: Civic Online Reasoning is motivated by three driving questions: Who's behind the information, What's the evidence and What do other sources say? This lesson is an introduction to the first concept. Registration is required and free.

This lesson is an introduction to a strategy that helps students evaluate where web baed information come from and whether it is trustworthy.

Lateral Reading is a strategy for investigating a website or post by going outside the site to determine who is behind a website and its information and deciding if it can be trusted.

Teacher and Student materials are included in this lesson.

This is Lesson Three in the Introduction to the Civic Online Reasoning method of evaluating online resources.

Students will be introduced to the important of verifying and supporting information with multiple information sources. This lesson is to be taught after Who's Behind the Information Saturday School and What's the Evidence lessons. Students will use the fictional scenario and resources to support claims and evidence presented in the information sources.

Teacher and Student materials are included in this lesson.

This is Lesson Two in the Introduction to the Civic Online Reasoning method of evaluating online resources.

Students will practice anaylzing evidence to be able to evaluate online information. This lesson is to be taught after Who's Behind the Information Saturday School lesson. Students will use the fictional scenario and resources to analyze and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the information source and the evidence itself.

Teacher and Student materials are included in this lesson.

Since information is always influenced by its author, analyzing who's behind the information should be a priority when evaluating online content. But too often, students attempt to evaluate information based on elements other than the source, such as the contents of a website, its appearance, or the evidence it supplies. In this lesson, students learn why the source of information is so important and practice analyzing information based on who's behind it.

Note: Civic Online Reasoning is motivated by three driving questions: Who's behind the information, What's the evidence and What do other sources say? This lesson is an introduction to the first concept. Registration is required and free.

This is Lesson One in the Introduction to the Civic Online Reasoning method of evaluating online resources.

Students will practice examining three sources around a fictional scenario, mandatory Saturday school, in this lesson to determine who is behind the information and how their motivation could affect their information.

Teacher and Student materials are included in this lesson.

In this digital history lesson, students corroborate competing accounts about La Malinche, one of the most significant and controversial figures in Mexican history. Students will reason historically about some of the most important historical documents on the conquest of Mexico in order to answer the central historical question: What was La Malinche’s role in the conquest of Mexico?