Best for
News literacy, reading rotations, homeroom critical thinking, or a quick warm-up before students use current events in inquiry work.
English • Media literacy • Years 7-10 • Print-ready tomorrow
Media Literacy: Source Checking and Headline Credibility
Use this handout to help ākonga slow down before they believe or share a dramatic claim. The sequence is built for short Aotearoa classroom use: check the source, notice emotional language, and decide what evidence is still missing.
Free source-check scaffold, premium adaptation path
This version is ready to print as-is. Te Wānanga becomes useful when you want the same structure rebuilt around a local article, a school social-media example, or a lower-reading-age text for your own ākonga.
- Swap in a local headline or a class-selected issue from your rohe.
- Generate junior support or senior extension versions of the same source-check.
- Save your adapted copy to My Kete and refine it later in Creation Studio.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 20-30 minutes as a stand-alone task, or longer if students bring in their own examples.
- Grouping: Whole-class modelling first, then paired checking and individual written reflection.
- Prep: Decide whether to discuss a real headline first or start with the built-in example.
- Teaching move: Ask “What still needs checking?” rather than letting the class stop at “I reckon it looks fake.”
- Support / stretch: Give the source-check ladder first for support; ask students to compare two conflicting headlines for stretch.
Resources already provided
- A short explainer on misinformation, disinformation, and emotional headlines
- A source-check ladder students can apply straight away
- A small headline credibility task
- Structured write-on reflection space
- A matching curriculum companion for teacher planning
If the lesson mentions a checklist, response space, or a verification task, those pieces already exist here. Kaiako should not need to build extra scaffolds at 9pm.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning to tell the difference between a strong source and a weak one.
- We are learning to notice how headlines use emotion, omission, and urgency.
- We are learning to explain what evidence we still need before trusting a claim.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can identify at least two signals that make a source more or less credible.
- I can explain how a headline is trying to shape my response.
- I can record sensible next steps for checking a claim before sharing it.
Curriculum integration / Te Marautanga alignment
The companion page makes the English and social-inquiry links explicit around media texts, perspectives, evidence, and digital critical literacy in an Aotearoa context.
Why this matters in Aotearoa
Media literacy in Aotearoa is not just about spotting obvious fake news. It is about asking whose voice is being trusted, what local context is missing, and whether a story is mana-enhancing or manipulative.
Through a mātauranga Māori lens, students are encouraged to act with responsibility before repeating claims that could harm people, whānau, or community relationships.
Read first: why dramatic claims spread quickly
Posts spread quickly when they make people feel shocked, angry, or afraid. That does not make them true. A fast-moving headline may still leave out key context, use anonymous claims, or quote a source that cannot be checked.
Misinformation is false or misleading information shared by mistake. Disinformation is false or misleading information shared on purpose. Both can travel quickly when readers react before they verify.
A careful reader pauses and asks: Who made this? What evidence is here? What might be missing? Would this claim still sound convincing if the emotional wording was removed?
Use the source-check ladder
1. Name the source
Is there a real person, organisation, journalist, or institution attached to the claim?
2. Look for evidence
Does the post include data, named experts, direct links, or verifiable quotes?
3. Notice the language
Does the headline rely on panic words, exaggeration, or “everyone is saying” style claims?
4. Check what is missing
Is there context, date information, or another point of view that would change how the claim is understood?
Quick credibility task
Sample headline: “Local school lunch programme linked to dramatic behaviour changes, parents furious.”
- What part of this headline is trying to create emotion?
- What evidence would you need before trusting the claim?
- Who should be heard from before the story is shared widely?
Your reflection
Choose a headline or social post your class has looked at. Explain whether you would trust it, not trust it yet, or need more checking. Use the source-check ladder to justify your decision.
Useful sentence starters: “One credibility signal is...”, “The headline tries to make readers feel...”, “Before sharing this, I would check...”
Hononga Marautanga · Curriculum Alignment
English — Te Reo Pākehā
Level 3–4: Read and interpret a range of texts for meaning and purpose; identify author intent, text structure, and language choices; write clearly for specific audiences and purposes using appropriate conventions.
Social Sciences — Tikanga ā-Iwi
Level 3–4: Understand how texts construct knowledge and perspective; evaluate the credibility and purpose of different sources; communicate ideas and findings effectively in written and oral forms.
Aronga Mātauranga Māori
In te ao Māori, language — reo — is a taonga: a treasure that carries culture, identity, and whakapapa across generations. The ability to speak clearly, to argue persuasively, to read critically, and to write with purpose are not simply academic skills — they are forms of mana in action. Māori oratory (whaikōrero) has always valued precision, evidence, and the ability to locate one's argument within a broader cultural and ancestral context. Students who develop strong literacy skills are developing the same capacities that made great orators powerful: the ability to be heard, understood, and taken seriously in any room they enter.
Ngā Rauemi Tautoko · Support Materials
This handout is designed to be used alongside the broader unit resources available at Te Kete Ako handouts library. Related resources from the same unit are linked in the unit planner. All resources are provided — no additional preparation is required to use this handout in your classroom.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will engage with this resource to build core literacy skills — reading comprehension, writing craft, and oral language — grounded in the rich storytelling traditions of Aotearoa New Zealand and the literacy practices that empower rangatahi voice.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can apply the literacy skill or strategy featured in this resource with growing independence.
- ✅ Students can connect this resource's literacy focus to authentic texts, contexts, or purposes from their own world.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide sentence starters, word banks, or graphic organisers for entry-level access. Model think-alouds before independent tasks. Offer extension challenges that deepen analysis — for example, comparing the author's craft choices across two texts or writing an additional stanza or paragraph.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach key vocabulary before reading. Allow students to annotate in their home language first, then translate key ideas. Use shared reading and think-pair-share structures to lower the stakes for language production. Bilingual glossaries and visual text supports help bridge comprehension.
Inclusion: Chunk reading and writing tasks into manageable steps. Offer multimodal options — oral, visual, or digital — for students to demonstrate understanding. Neurodiverse learners benefit from clear task structures and explicit success criteria. Affirm diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds as assets, not deficits.
Mātauranga Māori lens: Literacy in Te Ao Māori encompasses tātai kōrero (the arrangement of speech), waiata, whakataukī, and the deep art of kōrero — storytelling as knowledge transmission. Encourage students to see their own family stories and community knowledge as valid literacy texts. Karakia opens and closes learning with intention. Tātai kōrero honours the voice.
Prior knowledge: Adaptable across year levels. No specialist prior knowledge required for entry-level engagement. Teachers may wish to pre-read the resource and anticipate vocabulary that needs pre-teaching.
Curriculum alignment
- Reading — Making Meaning: Students will select and use sources of information, processes, and strategies to identify, form, and express ideas across a range of texts.
- Writing — Creating Meaning: Students will select and use sources of information, processes, and strategies to write in a range of text types for a variety of purposes and audiences.