Recently, on Last Week Tonight, comedian John Oliver addressed the use of quotations in political speeches. This hilarious segment starts with current Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson misquoting Thomas Jefferson, but then shows us that even our current President, Mr. Obama, and former Presidents Clinton and Reagan were guilty of the same academic crime. No one is safe from the horrors of misquoting!
The Common Core standards in English/Language Arts puts a real emphasis on evidence-based argumentation. This translates to spending time teaching our students how to integrate quotes from sources into their writing. While some quotes, pulled from class texts, are easy to verify, more open ended research projects create concerns about the validity of the source.
The most important strategy we can use is to teach students how to compare sources to verify information. There are graphic organizers, including the always useful Venn diagram, out there to help students process the information they are pulling. And if they are going to quote a famous person, it's always best to direct them to trustworthy sites like Brainy Quote.
Lastly, if you are interested in some good online research evaluation materials, click here.
And, for good fun, check out John Oliver's "Definitely Real Quotes" website.
Source:
Oliver, John, Kevin Avery, Tim Carvell, Josh Gondelman, Dan Gurewitch, Geoff Haggerty, Jeff Maurer, Scott Sherman, Will Tracy, Jill Twiss, and Juli Weiner. "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver." Episode 31. HBO. New York, NY, 18 Oct. 2015. Television.
No comments:
Post a Comment