Teaching Critical Reading and Writing in the Era of Fake News: (13 Studies in Composition and Rhetoric)

This collection offers support for instructors who are concerned about students’ critical literacy abilities. Attending to critical reading to help students navigate fake news, as well as other forms of disinformation and misinformation, is the job of instructors across all disciplines, but is especially important for college English instructors because students’ reading problems play out in many and varied ways in students’ writing. The volume includes chapters that analyze the current information landscape by examining assorted approaches to the wide-ranging types of materials available on and offline and offers strategies for teaching critical reading and writing in first-year composition and beyond. The chapters herein bring fresh perspectives on a range of issues, including ways to teach critical digital reading, ecological models that help students understand fake news, and the ethical questions that inform teaching in such a climate. With each chapter offering practical, research-based advice this collection underscores not just the importance of attending to reading, particularly in the era of fake news, but precisely how to do so.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures and Tables – Acknowledgments – Alice S. Horning and Ellen C. Carillo: Introduction – Disciplinary Responses to the Era of Fake News – Paul T. Corriga: The Reading Moves of Writing Teachers Debating Online – JosephForte: The Fox and the OWL: Pedagogical Lessons from a Real-World Fake News Controversy – William FitzGerald: Search(able) Warrants: Fostering Critical Empathy in the Writing (and Reading) Classroom – LaraSmith-Sitton and Courtney Bradford: What Is ‘Fake News’? Walls, Fences, and Immigration: How Community-Based Learning Can Prompt Students to Employ Critical Reading and Research Practices – Composition Classroom Practices in the Era of Fake News – Danielle Koupff: Factual Dispute: Teaching Rhetoric and Complicating Fact-Checking with The Lifespan of a Fact – Lilian Mina, DakotaMills, and Shifatiha: Fighting Fake News with Critical Reading of Digital-Media Texts – Ellery Sillsand Daniel Kenzie: Critical Science Literacy in the Writing Classroom: A Pedagogy for Post-truth Times – JessicaSlentz Reynoldsand Stephanie Jarrett: The Resurgence of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus: How Instructors Can Use New Media to Increase Students’ Awareness of Fake News – Jeaneen Canfield: Teach from Our Feet and Not Our Knees: Ethics and Critical Pedagogy – Kristina Reardon: News as Text: A Pedagogy for Connecting News Reading and Newswriting – Teaching Visual and Digital Media Literacy in the Era of Fake News – Dan Lawrence: How Information Finds Us: Hyper-Targeting and Digital Advertising in the Writing Classroom – Angelaaflen: Preparing Students to Read and Compose Data Stories in the Fake News Era – ChrisM. Anson and KendraL. Andrews: Sleuthing for the Truth: A Reading and Writing Pedagogy for the New Age of Lies – Stephanie West-Puckett, GenoaShepley, and Jessicaray: Hacking Fake News: Tools and Technologies for Ethical Praxis – Notes on Contributors – Index.

About the Author :
Ellen C. Carillo is Professor of English and a Writing Coordinator at the University of Connecticut. She is the author of Securing a Place for Reading in Composition: The Importance of Teaching for Transfer; A Writer’s Guide to Mindful Reading; Teaching Readers in Post-Truth America; and the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy. Alice S. Horning is professor emerita of Writing and Rhetoric/Linguistics at Oakland University. Her research over her entire career has focused on the intersection of reading and writing, focusing lately on lessons from the period 1880-1930 on the teaching and learning of literacy.