Bias can be one of the hardest lessons for high school students to truly grasp. Unfortunately, it's everywhere. If they don't really understand it, they'll miss the sly nuances that are slipped into our daily news. If they can't recognize it, they'll be more likely to believe what they read. They'll take things at face value. They won't question the world around them. They'll be sheep. And we don't want a nation of sheep.
To introduce bias in the media we defined the term and looked at clues for identifying it. Then we picked through examples. In the week of our lesson, Bobby Bowden retired from college football and President Obama announced the surge into Afghanistan. News sites were rife with opinions and my students had ample opportunities to examine word choice, tone, and hidden bias in headlines. Using my Smart Board, we analyzed headlines that looked at different sides of each story. We looked for emotions and discussed word connotation.
After thoroughly examining tone and word choice, students read "The Three Little Pigs" and highlighted words that showed the writer's bias for or against different characters in the story. All of that detailed analysis led us to a rewrite of the story, "Wolf Takes the Stand." Students were tasked with identifying bias in parts of the story and also examining how the wolf argues against stereotypes. We summed this up with a Venn Diagram on the two stories.
Now students are finishing up the lesson by rewriting another folk tale from the antagonist's point of view. The witch in "Hansel and Gretel" claims she cooked the children because they wouldn't do their chores. The wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood" proclaims his innocence because Red was a little brat that wouldn't give him anything to eat and he was just really hungry. They've come up with some great story lines. As we enter exam week, we'll finish up our stories and hopefully they'll demonstrate mastery of bias on their semester exams.
After thoroughly examining tone and word choice, students read "The Three Little Pigs" and highlighted words that showed the writer's bias for or against different characters in the story. All of that detailed analysis led us to a rewrite of the story, "Wolf Takes the Stand." Students were tasked with identifying bias in parts of the story and also examining how the wolf argues against stereotypes. We summed this up with a Venn Diagram on the two stories.
Now students are finishing up the lesson by rewriting another folk tale from the antagonist's point of view. The witch in "Hansel and Gretel" claims she cooked the children because they wouldn't do their chores. The wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood" proclaims his innocence because Red was a little brat that wouldn't give him anything to eat and he was just really hungry. They've come up with some great story lines. As we enter exam week, we'll finish up our stories and hopefully they'll demonstrate mastery of bias on their semester exams.
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