Using News Literacy in Composition Courses

As a journalist and doctoral student in Rhetoric and Composition, Taylor Riley will discuss how instructors can use current events and news coverage to amplify their research curriculum in an English classroom. As part of an English composition course, students are expected to choose academic articles based on reliability, but students should use the same standards with scholarship as they do with news. In a news literacy-themed composition course, students analyze key elements of current news articles, including weight of evidence and credibility, judging reliable news versus propaganda, knowing the differences between news and opinion and realizing the divide between bias versus fairness. Students share daily local, regional, national and international news stories and judge them based on the key elements of good journalism. Students then take these concepts into their research for several papers and projects that will include interviewing and investigative, editing and formatting skills. When the course has concluded, students are able to log into the internet, watch broadcasts and read news with a new outlook on what is and isn’t reliable.