Cover lesson · English · Year 10 · Advanced

Analysing fake news

DCF: Producing → Evaluating and improving digital content

Name: Class: Date:

Cover teacher — you need no subject knowledge

Print: this sheet, one per pupil, and the stimulus sheet "One story, three reports", one per pair. Highlighters help but are not essential. No computers needed — everything pupils analyse is on the stimulus sheet, and the final rewrite is handwritten.

Run: 8 min read all three reports in pairs · 15 min complete the evaluation grid · 7 min the "five checks" column · 15 min write the accurate rewrite · 5 min swap and mark against the criteria. The stimulus sheet ends with a list of checkable facts — tell pupils not to read it until the grid is finished, or the task does itself.

Collect: this sheet from every pupil. The rewrite at the bottom is the piece the class teacher will mark.

What you are doing

Three pieces of writing describe the same event: the closure of the Old Bridge in Llanbedr-ar-Fryn. One is a news report, one is campaigning, one is invented on top of somebody else's photograph. You will judge each one against the same criteria, then rewrite the worst of them accurately — keeping it interesting, because "boring but true" is not the lesson.

Step by step

8 min — Read all three reports. Highlight every number and every named person as you go.
15 min — Complete the evaluation grid. Write evidence, not verdicts: quote the words that made you decide.
7 min — Fill in "five things I would check next" — and say where you would check each one.
15 min — Rewrite Report C's headline and opening paragraph so that every claim is supportable. Aim for 120 words.
5 min — Swap. Tick your partner's sheet against the success criteria and challenge one thing they wrote.

Evaluation grid

Question	Report A — Chronicle	Report B — Llanbedr Voice	Report C — aggregator
Who wrote it? Named or not?
When was it published, and updated?
Where do the numbers come from?
Quote the most emotive phrase
Are people who disagree quoted?
Is the image what it claims to be?
One claim you can prove false
Trust score out of 5, and why

Five things I would check next — and where

What I would check	Where I would check it

Rewrite Report C accurately

New headline — accurate, and still worth clicking:

Opening paragraph, about 120 words. Every number attributed. Nothing you cannot support.

One sentence saying what you removed from the original and why:

Success criteria

I judge all three reports against the same criteria instead of only attacking the obvious one.
My grid gives evidence — quoted words and numbers — rather than opinions about the writer.
I identify at least two specific false claims and say what the accurate version is.
My checks are things that can actually be done (the council's published report, a reverse image search, a second outlet), and I say where.
My rewrite keeps the story readable while attributing every figure to its source.

If you finish early

Write the correction notice Report C should publish. Real newsrooms have a house style for these: state the error, state the truth, date it.
Report A is the most reliable, but it is not neutral. Find two choices its reporter made — who is quoted first, which figure leads — that shape how you read it.
Write the 30-word version of the true story for a local radio bulletin. What is the first thing you lose when you cut it that far?