Today’s blog post features my version of the fifth Check, Please! assignment, which you submitted at the beginning of yesterday’s class. Although you have now completed your final Check, Please! worksheet, this model assignment and the previous four will remain useful to you as you continue to hone your information literacy skills.
Next month, you will revisit the Check, Please! course when you and two or three of your classmates plan and deliver a five-minute presentation on one of the lessons.
Check, Please! Lesson Five
In the fifth lesson of the Check, Please!, Starter Course, Mike Caulfield, author of the course and ra esearch scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, covers the final step in the five-step SIFT approach: “Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media to Their Original Context.” Caulfield outlines the process of locating the original context as an antidote to the issues of accuracy that occur when information passes through intermediaries.
One of the most instructive portions of lesson five features a passage in which Caulfield cites a study of how stories evolve as gossip through the processes of leveling (stripping details), sharpening (adding or emphasizing details), and assimilating, which combines the two. In the process of assimilation “the details that were omitted and the details that were added or emphasized are chosen because they either fit what the speaker thinks is the main theme of the story, or what the speaker thinks the listener will be most interested in.” Similarly, leveling, sharpening, and assimilating all figure in the altered photographs and memes in lesson four. The abbreviated speech of the NRA’s CEO, Wayne LaPierre, which omits commentary, inaccurately indicates a contradiction in his stance on the presence of guns in schools.
The image of photographer Kawika Singson with flames at his feet serves as an example of leveling. Although the flames are real, they were not caused by the heat of the lava flow where Singson stands with his tripod. Instead, to create the image, a friend of his poured accelerant on the lava before Singson stepped into the frame. The deception wasn’t intentional; Singson simply wanted the image for his Facebook cover photo.
Unlike Singson’s photograph, the altered photograph of the Notorious B.I.G. with Kurt Cobain was created with the intent to deceive. Cropping and merging the two photographs illustrates the assimilation process adopted by photoshop users to appeal to music fans eager to think that such fictional meetings of icons took place. Krist Novoselic, who founded Nirvana with Cobain, replied to the is-it-real question with his own fake photo, making the claim that the hand holding the cigarettes was Shakur’s, that he had been cropped from the right.
Work Cited
Caulfield, Mike. Check, Please! Starter Course, 2021, https://checkpleasecc.notion.site/Check-Please-Starter-Course-ae34d043575e42828dc2964437ea4eed .
Congratulations and Thanks
Congratulations to the students whose literacy narratives were singled out by their classmates for their strengths:
- Aiden Bazzell (section 20) “The Hidden Meaning“
- Nicole Edelman (section 19) “Beyond the Ballot“
- Annalise Lindsay (section 19) “Three-Hundred Sixty-Five Words“
- Jed Negley (section 19) “Living in Panera“
And thank you to the students who took the opportunity to earn bonus points on their final Check, Please! assignment by commenting on the merits of one of their classmates’ essays: JonCarlos Altamura, Nicole Edelman, Dalton Holbrook (section 19), and Aiden Bazzell (section 20)
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble tips.
Jane Lucas 