Titanic Truths
Now have students access the student chapter Titanic Search: Lost Footage or display it on a screen or digital whiteboard.
Tell students that this claims to be lost footage of the Titanic, which famously sank in 1912.
How can we use companion reading to tell whether either of these sources are likely to be reliable?
Let students make a few suggestions, and then tell them (if none have suggested it) that in many cases you can get the answer just by using a search engine like Google.
Depending on your available time and technology, you can either do a live search on a data projector or digital whiteboard, or zoom into the screen capture at the top of the Structure Strip.
Now ask students if there is evidence:
That this source (George Franco) knows about the topic?
That they have a process for making sure their information is accurate?
That they have a motivation to give you accurate information?
With your live demonstration or the screen capture, demonstrate to students that when we search for George Franco (we need to put his name in quotation marks, to get just those words in that order, and to add the word “Titanic” to our search since “George Franco” is a common name) we see no evidence for any of the three questions: the only result is the YouTube channel.
Point out that this doesn’t necessarily mean the video is fake – only that because we don’t know the source is reliable, we can’t count on it being true.
- If we want to keep investigating to see if the video is true, we’ll have to check a reliable source – like a fact-checker, or someone we already know is a reliable source on the Titanic – to see what they say about it.
- If students are curious, you can tell them that fact-checkers have debunked this footage.
Now have students access the student chapter Titanic Search: Real Footage or display it on a screen or digital whiteboard.
Repeat the questions, and then show (using either a live demonstration or by zooming into the screen capture) that:
British Pathe was founded in 1910 (so they could have filmed footage in 1912)
They sent film crews around the world (so they had a process for getting accurate information)
They made newsreels and documentaries (so they have a motivation to be accurate.)
If we wanted more detail, we could look at their Wikipedia page or scroll down the search results to see what other people say about them, but just this is probably enough to tell that they are a reliable source on this topic.
Now ask: How would this be different if you were looking for information – if you wanted to learn more about the Titanic, for instance, instead of finding out whether or not a video you saw about it was true?
- You could either go directly to sources that you know are reliable, or use one or more companion texts to find reliable sources.
- Point out that search engines don’t necessarily only give you reliable sources, so you’ll have to use companion reading to check any sources you find using them.