In these uncertain and challenging times, we are committed to helping teachers and students adapt and thrive. For educators and parents teaching remotely or from home as a result of the novel COVID-19 coronavirus, AllSides for Schools provides tools and classroom material suitable for remote learning to help students build skills in news literacy, bias awareness, critical thinking, and conversation across difference.

Consider using the following resources with your students:

News Literacy

Students explore digital news, media bias, and how to appreciate diverse perspectives.

• AllSides Balanced News Feed — Teach students to recognize media bias and compare stories from the Left, Center, and Right.
• Media Bias Chart — Over 600 AllSides Media Bias Ratings help students to easily identify different perspectives so they can understand others and think for themselves.
• Story of the Week — Reveal how top stories are reported on differently across the political spectrum.
• Balanced Search — Search engines often provide a narrow view, showing only the most popular information. Provide a broader, more complete picture that includes diverse perspectives.

Respectful Dialogue

Help students build relationships with people different from them and understand and appreciate new ideas.

• Lesson Plans and Conversation Guides — Have students practice respectful discourse on topics that often divide us. Check out our conversation guide on life in the time of coronavirus to get started.
• Mismatch — Provide structured opportunities for dialogue among students from a diversity of geographic, cultural, political, and socio-economic backgrounds.
• Red Blue Dictionary — Reveal how people across the political spectrum define, think, and feel differently about the same term or phrase.

Critical Thinking

Enable students to evaluate information critically and to navigate interactions across difference.

• What's Your Bias? Quiz — Have students discover their own bias, and rate the bias of news sources across the political spectrum.
• Bias Survey Comparison — Invite students to compare bias quiz results with classmates and see where their leanings fit into the national landscape.

As always, contact us if there are any other ways we can support you during these times of change.

AllSides for Schools prepares students for thoughtful participation in democracy — and in life. It is a nonprofit program run jointly by AllSides, Living Room Conversations, and Mediator's Foundation.