Today’s blog post features my version of the second Check, Please! assignment, which you submitted at the beginning of class yesterday. In preparation for submitting your worksheet for lesson three, review this post as well as the assignment notes that I posted on January 23.
Check, Please! Lesson Two
In the second lesson of the Check, Please! Starter Course, Mike Caulfield, author of the course and a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, focuses on investigating a source, the second step in the SIFT approach, which he introduces in lesson one.
One of the most useful practices presented in lesson two is Caulfield’s follow-up to the Wikipedia strategy, which he outlined in the previous lesson. After he reviews that strategy, Caulfield explains how to use the control-f keyboard shortcut (command-f on a Mac). Typing control-f (or command-f) will open a small textbox in the upper right of the screen. Typing a word you are searching for will highlight the first appearance of the word in the text. Hitting return will highlight each subsequent appearance of the word.
Lesson two introduces the word to fauxtire, a term for websites such as World News Daily Report, based in Tel Aviv, that present themselves as satirical but in fact serve primarily to perpetuate disinformation.
Perhaps the most memorable portion of lesson two was the side-by-side comparison of the websites for the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Pediatricians. Though at first glance the two appear comparable, using the Wikipedia strategy reveals their profound differences. While AAP is the premiere authority on children’s health and well-being, ACP was founded to protest the adoption of children by single-sex couples and is widely viewed as a single-issue hate organization.
Work Cited
Caulfield, Mike. Check, Please! Starter Course, 2021, https://checkpleasecc.notion.site/Check-Please-Starter-Course-ae34d043575e42828dc2964437ea4eed/.
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 