C-SPAN Classroom has a new lesson plan that is quite timely given all of the recent stories about fake news stories created and shared through social media. Media Literacy & Fake News is a free lesson plan that is based on five C-SPAN videos featuring authors and other experts talking about the role of media in influencing how people think about political topics. The last video in the lesson plan features writers from The Onion talking about why they’re disappointed when people believe their stories are real.

Media Literacy & Fake News can be viewed on the C-SPAN website or as a Google Doc here.

This lesson plan could easily be expanded by asking students to identify fake news stories that are circulating in their own social media echo chambers.