ELA+Social+Justice+Intro+3

Assignment 3: Awareness and Evaluation __Time needed__: One 90 minute Project block

__Key Idea__: Understanding and evaluating research

__Procedure__: The teacher will review the discussion from the previous project block on awareness and what makes a good article. The class will then transition to examining the issue of what is a credible source.

The class will review the following website on evaluating web resources: [|http://www.bcpl.net/~dcurtis/psd/handouts/s3-67/]

The class will then examine the article “WHY DO RACISTS HAVE LOW IQs?” available at http://www.clubs.psu.edu/up/sayar/riqs.htm

Students will then transition to small groups and discuss the following key questions:


 * How does the author seek to persuade the reader?
 * Is the author credible? Why or Why not?

The class will reconvene as a whole group to discuss their answers to these questions.

Students will then compare the previous article to the Boston Globe article “Bias taxes Brain, research finds” available at:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/11/17/bias_taxes_brain_research_finds/

Students will then return to the original question of credibility and discuss again what makes an author credible.