Workshop: test your own source
Ākonga bring a media text they actually encountered and separate what it states from what it implies.
- Reading Workshop move: Own-source analysis
- Evidence it produces: A separated list of claim versus implication, from a real source
Route status: the learning intentions and mini-lesson scaffold are shared with the seminar route; the Do Now, activities, conferences, evidence and exit below are this route’s own. The difference is how ākonga work — their own chosen texts, individual evidence, and one-to-one conferencing — not which strategies are taught.
Lesson 7: Fact vs Opinion & Identifying Author Bias in Media Texts
Building confident, active readers through Te Ao Māori perspectives, comprehension strategies, and rich Aotearoa texts.
🎯 Ngā Whāinga Akoranga | Learning Intentions
The difference between objective verifiable facts and subjective opinions/judgments, persuasive language devices, loaded words, emotional tone, and author perspective/bias.
Classify statements as fact or opinion, identify loaded emotive words in news articles, and determine an author's point of view or bias.
⚡ Whakaoho | Do Now: Choose your target (8 mins)
From the class media stack (news articles, opinion pieces, reviews — build it from recent NZ sources), choose one text you want to audit. Skim it once. Write one sentence predicting which way the author leans, before any close work — you will test your own first impression against evidence.
🕵️ Activity 1: Solo bias audit (22 mins)
Audit your chosen text alone: find three statements of fact (and for each, say how it could be checked — a fact you cannot say how to verify goes in a “claims” column, not the fact column), three opinions, and two loaded words doing emotional work. Then the hard question: find the most disguised opinion in your text — the sentence dressed as fact that no check could settle.
Finish by re-reading your Do Now prediction: did the evidence back your first impression, or did the audit change your call?
🪑 While they work: reading conferences (run through Activity 1 mins)
Confer one-to-one with four or five ākonga, each on a different chosen text — the variety is the point of this route. Keep each conference under four minutes and record one line per learner on your conference sheet: text, strategy seen, next move. Everyone else keeps working — the conference is a conversation about their book, not a test.
Conference questions for this lesson:
- Show me your most disguised opinion. What makes it uncheckable?
- Read me your strongest loaded word in its sentence. What job is it doing?
- What would this text look like written by someone on the other side of the issue?
📝 Activity 2: Journal — audit report (15 mins)
Complete Section 7 of your Reading Journal: your text’s title and source, the sorted facts (with their checks), opinions, loaded words, and a two-sentence verdict on the author’s lean — supported only by what your audit found.
🚪 Exit (5 mins)
The single most loaded word in your chosen text, its sentence, and the job it does.
🏫 Kaiako Planning & Pedagogy Notes
Curriculum alignment: Te Mātaiaho, English, Phase 3 (Years 7–8). This lesson builds comprehension, critical literacy and cultural connectedness through Aotearoa literature and pūrākau. The unit's one verified Te Mātaiaho anchor is recorded on the curriculum companion; no further statement is claimed for this lesson until one is verified.