Hello, and welcome to your first science critical literacy lesson! Over the next few days, we’ll be decoding different websites to determine their voice and point of view. You should be asking yourself:

What does this website want me to believe?

Why do they want me to believe that?

Take into consideration that each website that we’ll look at was made by a different individual, and each one has a different purpose. Using the tools you’ll find in the Documents for Students, you will analyze a variety of websites, found under the Websites tab.

Visit this NPR site to listen to a small, 4 minute piece about Climate Change and reading the rhetoric about it on the internet, or click the SoundCloud player below.

When you visit each website, you want to ask yourself some very important questions including, but not limited to:

  • Who wrote the pages and are they an expert? Is a biography of the author included? How can I find out more about the author?
  • What does the author say is the purpose of the site? What else might the author have in mind for the site? What makes the site easy to use? What information is included and does this information differ from other sites?
  • When was the site created? When was the site last updated?
  • Where does the information come from? Where can I look to find out more about the sponsor of the site?
  • Why is this information useful for my purpose? Why should I use this information? Why is this page better than another?

These questions are known as the Five W’s of Critical Literacy. You should consider these questions each time you visit any informative website. These are from the website: http://kathyschrock.net/abceval/5ws.htm