When I taught current events to ninth grade students the first unit I taught was about recognizing bias, propaganda, and logical fallacies. The Guide to Common Fallacies is a resource that I wish I had back then. The Guide to Common Fallacies is a series of five short videos from the PBS Idea Channel. Each video covers a different common fallacy. The fallacies are Strawman, Ad Hominem, Black and White, Authority, and No True Scotsman. I have embedded the playlist below.

Applications for Education

I found that once my students were able to recognize fallacies they started to create stronger arguments of their own which in turn produced better classroom discussions. These videos could help certainly help high school students understand and recognize common fallacies when they see and hear them.