A few days ago, I got an email that looked something like this. Click on this link to see the content of the email.  

The email got me thinking. Could it be true? So I did a quick Google search. Click here to see the results of that.

My quick Google search reminded me of one of my favorite logical fallacies (Fallacies are tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people). The fallacy I am talking about is argumentum ad ignorantiam also known as argument fromignorance or lack of evidence to the contrary. This got me wondering.  Why put together an email like this when it is so easy to prove it wrong? Don’t other people Google things? 

Then I remembered a TED Talk on Filter Bubbles, and I began to wonder. Maybe most people just don’t understand how the Internet, their preferences, and their friends and family affect what they learn.  (Watch the video below or click here to learn how filter bubbles affect what you know about the world)
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Sparked by these ideas of filter bubbles, logical fallacies, and political bias, I found myself on Politifact looking at what politicians have had to say recently. If you haven’t heard of it, PolitiFact is a Pulitzer Prize-winning website known for fact-checking the accuracy of claims made by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics.  The website rates the statements on a 6-point scale from True to Pants-on-Fire Liar. For example, take a look at Donald Trump compared with Marco Rubio. Go ahead, click on the links. Compare the two. Who tells more of the truth? Here are a couple of other websites that do the same type of work. http://www.factcheck.org/  and http://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/pfds.php

Ok, so now that you have read the biased email, seen proof of the bias through the Google search results, learned about a type of logical fallacy, and learned about filter bubbles and Politifact. You are almost ready to write your extra credit post. But first, during the holiday break, find a way to chat with family and friends about what you are learning about critical reading (remember: any single text provides but one portrayal of the facts, one individual’s “take” on the subject matter.) Critical readers look for bias. What kinds of things should you as a 21st century learner be doing to make sure the information you read and hear isn’t biased? How can you check to see if things are true? Go ahead, have some fun conversations with you family and then log back in here and give me your thoughts. I will be expecting a multi-paragraph essay. And like your reading journals, I will expect that at least one of those paragraphs talks about the conversations you had with your families. Good luck.