Watch seventh graders share news literacy skills at a holiday dinner table

The holidays are a time to be together with loved ones, but conversations can get contentious if the topic turns to falsehoods circulating on social media or elsewhere. Luckily, the seventh-grade students at North Salem Middle/High School in New York know how to keep the mood civil around the dinner table by relying on news literacy skills.

In a segment for CBS Mornings Plus,  students in educator Cynthia Sandler’s media literacy class set a mock dinner table and gathered around a blow-up turkey to model how to listen with empathy, share verified information and separate fact from opinion – without starting an argument.

“Classrooms are a microcosm of society,” Sandler said. “What we can simulate in a class – listening, questioning, talking with one another, respecting one another – that is what is possible in society.”

Sandler, a media specialist, uses resources from the News Literacy Project to teach her lessons. The North Salem Central District is an alumni member of NLP’s  News Literacy District Fellowship program, which provides training and support for school systems to implement their own news literacy curriculum.

Watch the full segment here.  Check out the News Literacy Project’s resources for how to speak up without starting a showdown this holiday season here.