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6th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 10 of 12

Check the Source

Credible sources, AI tools and citing

What your child practices

Children practice judging whether a source is credible and accurate, reading laterally, checking text and images made by technology such as chatbots, narrowing research questions and citing sources.

Maine Learning Results learning standard: Writing 1 · research questions and judging whether a source is credible

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. A credible source is written by someone who knows the topic and backs up claims.
  2. Read laterally: leave the page to see what other sources say about it.
  3. Chatbots and other tools can sound sure and still be wrong. Check their facts and cite your sources.

Example: What is lateral reading? Lateral means sideways. You go sideways to other sources to check one. Answer: leaving a page to see what other sources say about it

Check the Source in Maine

In the Maine Learning Results, this is unit 10 of 12 in 6th grade English Language Arts, after Text Forms & Features and before Media Techniques.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Maine Department of Education

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    A video says a new drink makes kids smarter. It is posted by the drink company. What is the problem?

    • drinks cannot be sold
    • it is too short
    • videos are always false
    • the company benefits if you believe it

  2. Question 2

    What is corroboration?

    • writing your opinion
    • copying from one source
    • checking that several reliable sources agree
    • trusting the first result

  3. Question 3

    What is a citation?

    • a quotation from a poem
    • information that tells where you found a source
    • a type of graph
    • a summary of your opinion

  4. Question 4

    You find a statistic with no source. What should you do?

    • make your own number
    • change the number
    • look for where the number came from
    • use it anyway

  5. Question 5

    Which research question is open-ended and researchable?

    • Is the ocean blue?
    • How has plastic pollution affected sea turtles?
    • Do I like turtles?
    • Are sea turtles cool?

  6. Question 6

    You paraphrase a fact from an encyclopedia. Do you still need to cite it?

    • no, the words are yours now
    • only if it is long
    • only if it is a quote
    • yes, the idea came from that source

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