The Misinfopedia

My Digital Literacy students study the complex world of social media and misinformation, and then code their own web-based articles to share their learning with the Renaissance community. When you look at the articles, with images, headings and links, they may not look like much - you can make them pretty easily with a word processor - but these were coded by hand, after students learned Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) with a free online tutorial collection called CodeHS.com.

There are many layers and stages to the work you will read here. They are all grounded in the authenticity of exploring how technology is changing us, as individuals and as a society, often not in good ways. Initially, these middle school students have to make mental models for the dynamics of social media algorithms and business models (what does "You are the Product" mean? Why do advertisers pay so much money to Facebook and Instagram and TikTok just so they can show us videos and conspiracy theories about how the earth is flat and Donald Trump is still president?) They watch videos, study diagrams, and read newspaper articles often written for adults. From what they tell me, this project is one of the the first times students had to link claims about how humans, computers, networks and businesses relate to each other by linking to web-based articles, learning about quoting versus paraphrasing and the various ways to cite a source.

Students get to choose (as a class section) what their final project will be. The projects you'll see here are either "encyclopedia articles" about Misinformation, which we call The Misinfopedia, or satire stories from The Renaissance Renagade [misspelling intended] about how mobile phones, social media and misinformation are changing how we experience the world.

The craftsmanship involved in writing satire or encyclopedia articles is different, but perhaps equally challenging. Satire must reflect a real world problem (and students are required to link their stories to real articles about the problems they are exaggerating), both reflecting an understanding of those stories and creatively imagining versions of them that strain credibility. While we had hoped The Renaissance Renagade would be shared with the rest of the school, concerns about people not understanding that the articles were satire prevented that permission. We share them now because of the addition of a pop-up message that explains about the satire. You can't read the articles without seeing that message.

Misinfopedia articles were also surprisingly challenging to craft. Even though an author of an article must know enough about the subject to choose what to include in 3-5 paragraphs and how to organize that information, they are not "allowed" to say anything on their own. Every claim must be tied to an external source that they have decided is trustworthy, and the "writer's voice" must be neutral, formal, and written in the third person. This is particularly hard when writing about misinformation, because the sources found online may themselves be masquerading as truth. Two students included sources in the first drafts of their articles that looked very convincing on the surface, but turned out to be fake marketing ploys..

I am very proud of my Digital Literacy students over the previous three quarters. Humanities classes do not always evoke the level of work that core classes do, where there is a year-long commitment, a multi-year progression, and the pressure to prepare for standardized testing. It is safe to say that three-quarters of my students produced work you will read in the Renagade, the Misinfopedia, or our advice column Ask Safety Sam(antha). Some of the top examples are the articles showcased below, but use the top menu to view others when you're done!

-Bram Moreinis