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NewsTrust has created a set of teacher guides that will help you teach your students the difference between good and bad journalism. These guides include interactive lesson plans for college and high school classes in journalism, civics, social studies, communications and more

Sounds like journalism and education have a lot in common?

How do we make schools more relevant to students? Teach them the skills they need in the real world, with tools they use every day. That's exactly what Esther Wojcicki, a teacher of English and journalism at Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto, Calif., is attempting to do with the recent launch of the website 21STcenturyli

"Op-ed writing gives us the chance to delve into an issue we're passionate about and illuminate its importance for our readers. It's a powerful genre-with new research revealing the op-ed really does change people's minds. This month, we were honored to have writer, advocate and activist Dr. Anita Heiss with us. As our Guest Judge, Dr. Heiss offered invaluable advice on how to write an op-ed capable of catalyzing change. And today, after considering your compelling arguments, Dr. Heiss is eager to share her picks for Best Entry, Runner Up and Best Peer Review! Read on for her commentary on these original works. We want to send a special thanks to the Journalism Education Association for collaborating with us on this competition and for their commitment to helping young writers find their voice through journalism. "

"Journalism is tied to a set of ethical standards and values, including truth and accuracy, fairness and impartiality, and accountability. However, journalism today often strays from objective fact; the result is biased news. Bias isn't necessarily a bad thing, but hidden media bias misleads, manipulates and divides us. This is why AllSides provides hundreds of media bias ratings and a media bias chart. Seventy-two percent of Americans believe traditional news sources report fake news, falsehoods, or content that is purposely misleading. With trust in media declining, media consumers must learn how to spot types of media bias. This page outlines 11 types of media bias, along with examples of their use in popular media outlets."

"We're coming upon our  65th installment of "Why's this so good?" - in which notable journalists dissect their favorite pieces of narrative journalism. Our contributors have included Adam Hochschild, Jennifer B. McDonald, Eli Sanders, Megan Garber, Wesley Morris, Ann Friedman, Chris Jones and Ben Yagoda, and covered Joan Didion, Calvin Trillin, Michael Paterniti, Nora Ephron, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Roy Blount Jr., David Foster Wallace, Michael Lewis and dozens more. The series has highlighted classics of print, plus a little public radio, and we've got other narrative forms scheduled. Here are excerpts of the top five most popular pieces so far:"

Discusses "distributed reporting" through social media.

"These resources provide an overview of journalistic writing with explanations of the most important and most often used elements of journalism and the Associated Press style. This resource, revised according to The Associated Press Stylebook 2012, offers examples for the general format of AP style"

"McPhee has now published more than thirty books, work that first appeared in the pages of The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1963. He's written about Alaska (Coming into the Country), the Swiss Army (La Place de la Concorde Suisse), and an island in Scotland's Inner Hebrides (The Crofter and the Laird). His subjects have included the atomic bomb, the environmental movement, the U.S. Merchant Marine, Russian art, and fishing. Four books on geology. Three on transport. Two on sports. One book entirely about oranges. He has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World, his comprehensive survey of North American geology. His work has inspired generations of nonfiction writers, and he has distinguished himself especially as a teacher of literary journalism." This is an interview with him about writing and teaching.

"In the first large-scale analysis of new systems that evaluate teachers based partly on student test scores, two researchers found little or no correlation between quality teaching and the appraisals teachers received. The study, published Tuesday in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association, is the latest in a growing body of research that has cast doubt on whether it is possible for states to use empirical data in identifying good and bad teachers."

"Below, all our E.L.A. and arts-related posts. On June 11 we'll publish a list of all of the Student Opinion questions we have asked this year. And if you'd like to go further, here are five more years' worth of lesson plan collections for English language arts, from 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014."

An example of how internet content is changing.

"The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf's picks for must-read nonfiction from 2013."

"Teacher-consultant Rus VanWestervelt describes how he founded a journal designed and edited by high school students and devoted entirely to publishing creative nonfiction written by teens throughout Maryland."

"NPR is thrilled to announce its upcoming slate of podcasts. These six summer shows include a comedy, and for the first time, a children's show. "We are expanding the range of our programming by giving a platform to new voices, sharing a fun new side of favorite contributors, and doubling down on immersive stories and journalism," says Vice President for Programming and Audience Development Anya Grundmann."

"Like so many of the people he writes about, McPhee is a consummate craftsman. There are many aspects of his craft that a fellow writer can envy, from his keen, loving ear for the quirks and rhythms of American speech, to his arsenal of tools - including shifts of tense you only notice on the second reading - for nimbly hopping about in time."

reading non-fiction as inquiry - plug in author for scientists in the chart to add an inquiry angle to the text.

"Welcome to Storyboard's first annual year-end roundup of top storytelling: 34 of our favorite pieces in audio, magazines, newspapers and online, "

Tips for teaching and studying non-fiction. Genre study

"The magazine story behind Sebastian Junger's celebrated nonfiction book A Perfect Storm ran in Outside magazine in October 1994. "The Storm" (4,765 words) told the story of the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat out of Gloucester, Mass., that sank amid horrific weather, killing everyone aboard. It's a harrowing narrative, and particularly remarkable for being - by virtue of nature and fate - a write-around. Storyboard's questions and comments for Junger are in red; Junger's answers - which he kindly offered by phone - are in blue."