Tomorrow, at the beginning of class, I will collect your worksheets for the first Check, Please! lesson. If you were absent on the day that I distributed copies of the worksheet or you have misplaced your copy, download the file from Blackboard and print it.
My sample assignment for lesson one appears below, as well as on the worksheet, itself.
Check, Please! Lesson One
In the first lesson of the Check, Please!, Starter Course, Mike Caulfield, author of the course and a research scientist at Washington State University’s Center for an Informed Public, introduces the four-step SIFT approach to determining the reliability of a source: (1) “Stop,” (2) “Investigate,” (3) “Find better coverage,” and (4) “Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.”
One of the most useful practices presented in lesson one is what the author terms the “Wikipedia Trick.” Deleting everything that follows a website’s URL (including the slash), adding a space, typing “Wikipedia,” and hitting “enter” will yield the site’s Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia entry that appears at the top of the screen may indicate the source’s reliability or lack thereof.
The most memorable segment of lesson one is the short, riveting video “The Miseducation of Dylann Roof,” which begins with the narrator asking the question, “How does a child become a killer?” Produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, it documents how algorithms can lead unskilled web searchers down paths of disinformation. In the worst cases, such as Roof’s, algorithms can lead searchers to the extremist propaganda of radical conspiracy theorists.
Work Cited
Caulfield, Mike. Check, Please! Starter Course, 2021, https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/front-matter/updated-resources-for-2021/.
Check, Please! worksheets are designed to be handwritten, and I prefer for you to complete them by putting pen to paper. If, however, you wish to type them, you are required to follow MLA style manuscript guidelines. See the sample file posted in the Check, Please! folder on Blackboard.
Next Up
Tomorrow’s class will be devoted to planning and drafting your literacy narratives. Next Wednesday, January 31, I will return your handwritten drafts with my notes, and you will have the class period to begin revising your narratives on your laptops and tablets. After that class, you will have an additional week to continue your revision work. The due date for posting your revisions to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog is Wednesday, February 7 (before class); the hard deadline is Friday, February 9 (before class).
Jane Lucas 