Classroom Lesson Plan: Evaluating a Source in Fifty Minutes

Learning objective

Students evaluate an unfamiliar website using lateral reading, and produce a written statement of what they concluded and what they were unable to establish.

The second half of that objective is deliberate. A lesson that rewards reaching a verdict teaches overconfidence.

Preparation

• Select two unfamiliar sources in advance and complete the evaluation yourself, including the searches that fail.
• Print the source evaluation worksheet, one per student.
• One device between two students is sufficient and encourages discussion.

Lesson sequence

0 to 5 minutes: The hook

Show the class a professionally designed unfamiliar site. Ask for a show of hands: does this look trustworthy?

Take two reasons from each side. Write them on the board. Every reason offered will be a property of the page itself. Point that out without commenting on whether the site is in fact reliable.

5 to 12 minutes: Direct instruction

Introduce the distinction between vertical and horizontal reading. Vertical reading studies the page. Lateral reading leaves it.

Give the four moves: leave within thirty seconds, search the publisher name with a neutral term, identify what the organization is for, trace one specific claim to its source.

Keep this to seven minutes. It is not the part that produces learning.

12 to 22 minutes: Modelled practice

Evaluate the same site live, on the projector, narrating your reasoning aloud. Include a search that returns nothing useful and say what you conclude from that.

Modelling the failures is the most important part of the lesson. Students who only see a smooth demonstration conclude that they are bad at this.

22 to 40 minutes: Guided practice

Pairs evaluate the second source using the worksheet. Circulate with one question: “What have you found out, and where did you find it?”

Redirect students who are reading the site’s own About page. Do not tell any pair whether their emerging conclusion is right.

40 to 47 minutes: Discussion

Take field five from four or five pairs: what could you not establish?

Ask one further question: what would you need in order to find that out? This turns an unresolved point into a next step rather than a shrug.

47 to 50 minutes: Exit ticket

Each student writes two sentences on a slip: one stating what kind of source it is and how they know, one stating what they could not establish.

These are quick to read and give you a clear picture of who is still reading vertically.

Differentiation

Students who finish early. Give a third source with a contested independent record, where sources disagree about the organization. The task becomes describing the disagreement rather than resolving it.

Students who struggle with the search step. Provide two prewritten search queries and ask them to interpret the results rather than construct the query.

English language learners. Allow searching in a first language. Independent coverage in another language is a legitimate and often better result.

Assessment

The exit ticket is the assessment. Two indicators of success: the student names a source of evidence external to the site, and the student writes something real in the second sentence rather than “nothing”.

Common difficulties

Students equate professional design with reliability. This is the belief the hook is designed to expose. Return to the board list at the end.

Students conclude a source is “biased” and stop. Push for specificity: biased toward what, and how would that show up in which claims?

Students treat the absence of an independent record as proof of deception. Correct this directly. It means the source is not established, not that it is dishonest.

Version and reuse

Version 1.0, reviewed August 2026. Reuse terms are described on the Terms of Use page.

Facilitator notes

Written for secondary teachers. Assumes one device between two students. Adaptable to a sixty or ninety minute period.

Next step

Give students the Evaluate a Source lab as homework

Topics covered: Community PracticeMedia Literacy