This collection of lessons represent adapted and remixed instructional content for teaching media literacy and specifically civic online reasoning through distance learning. These lessons take students through the steps necessary to source online content, verify evidence presented, and corroborate claims with other sources.

The original lesson plans are the work of Stanford History Education Group, licensed under CC 4.0. Please refer to the full text lesson plans at Stanford History Education Group’s, Civic Online Reasoning Curriculum for specifics regarding background, research findings, and additional curriculum for teaching media literacy in the twenty-first century.

Students will learn the potential costs and benefits of social media, digital consumption, and our relationship with technology as a society in the three-week lesson. This inquiry based unit of study will answer the following questions:

Essential Question: How can we use science fiction’s ability to predict the future to help humanity?

Supportive Questions 1: What predictions of future development has science fiction accurately made in the past? This can include technology, privacy, medicine, social justice, political, environmental, education, and economic.

Supportive Question 2: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are positive for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to make these predictions reality?

Supportive Question 3: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are negative for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to stop these negative outcomes?

This lesson is designed for students in adult basic education grade level E (low and high adult secondary education). The purpose of this lesson is to develop student proficiency in reading and analyzing text. The lesson topic is the issue of an individual’s right to privacy as balanced with the government’s responsibility for security of its citizens.

This resource contains integrated tasks, assessments, and skill building exercises to continually push language learning forward. In these integrated examples, the content of the the text is the vehicle that drives skill development; it simultaneously deepens our understanding of the world around us.

The Middle East conflict and terrorism are issues we hear about almost daily in the news. This lesson will use video clips from WIDE ANGLE's 'Suicide Bombers' (2004), Internet sites, and primary sources to examine the roots of the Middle East conflict. The video contains interviews with young Palestinians who participated -- or intended to participate -- in suicide bombings. These young Palestinians share the personal, religious, political and emotional reasons behind their participation in these suicide operations. This lesson could be used to review information about the three major monotheistic religions and their connections to Israel, to relate post-World War II policies to the current political state of the Middle East, and/or to get students to understand the roots of the terrorism that threatens the world we live in.

Using published writers' texts and students' own writing, this unit explores emotions that are associated with the artful and deliberate use of commas, semicolons, colons, and exclamation points (end-stop marks of punctuation).

FOCUS QUESTIONIs compassion the basis for morality?STUDENT OUTCOMESStudents will:examine and interpret the definitions of morality and compassion as presented in a variety of textsread, analyze, and discuss quotations and/or multimedia sourceswrite an original definition of a moral person (This definition will be used later in an argument paper which cites Atticus Finch's acts of compassion as evidence of his morality.) Image source: "Mockingbird" by skeeze on Pixabay.com.

Learn how and when the Eastern Shoshone came to Wyoming, what are the Shoshone values, and what are the people of the Eastern Shoshone like? In the accompanying lessons plans (found in the Support Materials), students will gain an understanding of the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868 including its importance to the state of Wyoming and the Eastern Shoshone Tribe in 1868 and today. The American Bison, or Buffalo as preferred by most tribes, has a significant existence among the Native American people. For thousands of years, the great American Buffalo roamed the Great Plains, migrating from north to south, searching for areas on which to thrive. The Shoshone people depended on the buffalo for many things that included food, clothing, and shelter. Every part of the buffalo was used and provided for the people.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Students will study (Highlight, paraphrase and report) the Treaty of 1868 between the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and the United States Government.
Students will learn about the Eastern Shoshone people through the use of research and technology.
Students will understand that the history of the Shoshone people in the Wind River Mountains dates back thousands of years.
Students will understand that the circle of life continues in a perpetual cycle and is passed on through oral tradition. These stories often taught a lesson to young people.
Students will understand the indigenous perspective of interconnectedness. Students will understand how bison populations were devastated by western expansion.
Students will learn how to construct, read, compare and analyze different population graphs.
Students will understand how the diets of the Shoshone people varied depending on the areas in which they lived.
Students will acquire knowledge of the Wind River Reservation communities and be able to identify these locations on a map.
Students will be able to further describe how their culture has shaped them.
Students will be able to define the concept of culture.
Students will be able to explain some of the attributes of culture.

The corrupting influence of slavery on marriage and the family is a predominant theme in Solomon Northup's narrative Twelve Years a Slave. In this lesson, students are asked to identify and analyze narrative passages that provide evidence for how slavery undermined and perverted these social institutions. Northup collaborated with a white ghostwriter, David Wilson. Students will read the preface and identify and analyze statements Wilson makes to prove the narrative is true.

This resource contains integrated tasks, assessments, and skill building exercises to continually push language learning forward. In these integrated examples, the content of the the text is the vehicle that drives skill development; it simultaneously deepens our understanding of the world around us.

The Citation Table is a graphic organizer where specific phrases and sentences are analyzed to gather a more broad understanding of a text.

In "Anthem", by Ayn Rand, Equality speaks of the Home of Eugenics in which males and females of his dystopian society must report to at the appropriate age. To help students better understand the ethical issues with eugenics, they will interact with this informational article from the Huffington Post. This article will allow students to discuss and learn about the issues of eugenics in their own back yard.

In this module, students engage with literature and nonfiction texts that develop central ideas of guilt, obsession, and madness, among others. Building on work with evidence-based analysis and debate in Module 1, students will produce evidence-based claims to analyze the development of central ideas and text structure. Students will develop and strengthen their writing by revising and editing, and refine their speaking and listening skills through discussion-based assessments.

This lesson combines Oedipus the King and Aristotle's Poetics. Students will look at both pieces and write an argumentative essay as their assessment.

In this module, students will read, discuss, and analyze contemporary and classic texts, focusing on how complex characters develop through interactions with one another and how authors structure text to accomplish that development. There will be a strong emphasis on reading closely and responding to text dependent questions, annotating text, and developing academic vocabulary in context.

How does media coverage of migration shape how Americans’ views of migration by youth? Why are so many young people trying to migrate to the United States? What are their journeys like? What happens when they get to the U.S.-Mexico Border? What role does U.S. policy play in this situation? These are the major questions that students will explore in this 4-day mini-unit, which results in media literacy and creative assessments.

This inquiry by Ryan Theodoriches, Evergreen Public Schools, is based on the C3 Framework inquiry arc. The inquiry leads students through an investigation of the decision by the federal government of the United States to honor Christopher Columbus with a federal holiday as well as efforts to challenge the view that Columbus should be revered as a national hero.

Students will gain an understanding of the Northern Arapaho people located on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. In the accompanying lessons plans (found in the Support Materials), students will learn how the Northern Arapaho come to Wyoming, what are the Arapaho values, and why were Arapaho tribal names changed?

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Students will be able to evaluate what geographical places were used by the Arapaho people and understand how historical events changed the future for the Arapaho people.
Students will compare and contrast between their social and ceremonial structures.
Students will understand the hierarchy of the Arapaho Tribe.
Students will analyze how their social and ceremonial structures contribute to their cultural identity.

This 2 week lesson incorporates the CCSS ELA Standards using the Serial podcast, an engaging murder mystery podcast.

This is a solutions-oriented storyline that leads students through a series of investigations to quantify and qualify the ecosystem and social benefits of an urban forest. At the end of the storyline, students will be able to design, evaluate and refine a chosen solution for urban forest ecosystem benefits.