the syllabus.

Assignment
The purpose of this assignment is for you to examine a fake news article and show how you determine that it is fake news. To accomplish this, you will

1. Read the articles below and consider what we’ve talked about in class regarding fake news.
2. Find an article linked either from Facebook or Twitter, or found in some other way, as long as you have definitively determined that it is fake news.
3. Using a definition of fake news that YOU develop from the links below, examine the article to determine in what ways the label ‘fake news’ applies to it.

Process
1. Read the articles at the links below.
2. Using the information from those articles and what we have discussed in class, develop a definition of ‘fake news.’
3. In addition to developing a definition, also develop a list of criteria–at least five items—that will help you determine whether or not any article is fake news.
4. Choose a fake news article* that you will examine in the essay you write for this assignment.
5. Using your definition and criteria, examine your fake news article in detail to describe how you have determined that it is fake news.

More to consider/tips for writing a good essay
1. Write an intro that contains your definition of fake news and that explains in the thesis (at the end of the intro) that you will be examining an article with your criteria to determine if it is fake news.
2. Make sure that you say the name of the article and the news source either in the intro or the first paragraph.
3. Include your specific criteria either in the intro or first paragraph.
4. Be specific in linking each item of criteria to the style, words, visuals, etc. of the article. In other words, it is not enough to say, “This author in this article is using an overly emotional writing style”; rather, quote ACTUAL WORDS that show the overly emotional writing style.
5. Try to use one example from the text of your fake news article for each criterion–however, if certain details can be used to demonstrate more than one criterion, it’s fine to use that detail more than once.
6. Looking at your thesis statement, determine how you can make it clearer, avoid language that cannot be proven, and include a because/why/how in order to communicate to your reader what the overall point of your essay will be.
7. If you quote or paraphrase from articles, make sure that you cite and include the article in a works cited page at the end of the essay. MLA citations look like this: “Listen to me”(Bertone). For the works cited page, use MLA style, which you will find guidelines for at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
8. Remember that the job of your thesis is to tell the reader what your essay will about, and the job of your essay is to support your thesis and show it to be valid in every paragraph.
9. In your conclusion, you need not repeat what’s in your intro, but rather, reiterate your WHY or BECAUSE and talk about the implications of what you have examined. Ex: if your thesis is that it’s important to examine articles so that the public’s trust in mainstream, truthful media can be maintained, then in your conclusion, you could repeat that and talk about why a free and truthful press is an important facet of democracy and/or communication sharing, etc.

ONE LAST THING
• There is a difference between BIASED news and FAKE news. You can often determine the difference by determining whether the information presented as factual in the article is actually factual. If the information is NOT factual, but presented as factual, it is probably fake news.
• If, instead, the writer’s voice is inflammatory and sensationalistic, but the information is verifiable or even not presented as definitively factual, then it is probably just BIASED.

*find the article yourself, using facebook, twitter, or google. Be sure that your article is not a DESCRIPTION of fake news, but rather an EXAMPLE of fake news. It should not have fake news in the title and it should not be about the topic of fake news. Do not use as your article any of the articles below—because they are NOT fake news—they are descriptions of fake news.

Articles:

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/02/16/514364210/5-ways-teachers-are-fighting-fake-news

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/17/515630467/with-fake-news-trump-moves-from-alternative-facts-to-alternative-language

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html?utm_term=.f0b3ccbf3da3

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2016/12/stop_calling_everything_fake_news.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/27/technology/daily-report-inside-snopes-a-fighter-of-fake-news.html?_r=0

https://www.google.com/amp/www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/02/27/fake-news-salon-claims-trump-letting-ice-deport-whoever-want/amp/ – USE THIS ARTICLE