Hispanic Heritage Month
Category: Social Studies-Civics-ELA
Media type: Image and Text
Media Platform: Instagram
Arrange students into groups of 3-4 and ask each group to apply the following steps from my book to evaluate this post. Also ask them to use the relevant indicators from the Social Media News Evaluation Game and the Is It Misleading News? game in the book’s Chapter 14. Then bring them back together and lead a class discussion to elicit students’ reactions and thoughts.
- Stop! Check for Biases and Mindset—the Author’s and Your Own
Most students will notice the image of the two children before they notice the text. The image is likely to trigger their preexisting biases. So before sharing, they should ask themselves:
- How does the image make me feel?
- What emotions am I experiencing? Attraction, disbelief, etc.?
After students read the caption and adjacent text, they should ask themselves:
- How does the information in the text combined with the image affect my emotions?
- How do word choices affect my emotions?
- What mindset might I have toward posts like this?
- What cognitive biases may cause me to feel this way?
- Could confirmation bias cause me to believe the text and image right off the bat? Could resistance bias cause me to discount them or be skeptical? Could the groupthink/bandwagon effect cause me to accept or reject the information without thoroughly evaluating it?
Students should let their emotions settle and prepare to evaluate the media as dispassionately as possible.
- Investigate the Source
The account that uploaded the post, The Hispanic Star, (@thehispanicstar), claims to be a nonprofit organization “Powering Hispanic progress in the US.” It is not a mainstream, standards-based news source. So students should leave Instagram and investigate the source using smart Googling tips from the book.
The Hispanic Star website says it “… is an effort from the We Are All Human Foundation to advance inclusion, equity, and progress for US Hispanics.” Clicking on the link at the bottom of the webpage takes us to the We Are All Human Foundation website. This website indicates that the organization, headed by Claudia Romo Edelman, seeks to “advocate for every human to be respected and empowered by focusing on our common humanity” and is “…devoted to diversity & inclusion as a way to achieve equity.”
Students should uncover additional reports about Hispanic Star and We Are All Human Foundation from reputable news outlets. Publishers Weekly[1] and Axios[2] generally echo the information from the Hispanic Star and We Are All Human webpages. These reports add that Hispanic Star includes a series of biographies for young middle school readers. The series aims to enable children from any background to learn about notable Hispanic individuals and the roles they have played in the history and culture of the US. The goal is consistent with the post’s image showing what appear to be middle school students.
A reverse image search for the image surfaced only one result. The image appeared on a Russian website, Посвящение в пятиклассники: сценарий праздника (fb.ru) on December 6, 2016. The image does not appear to have been altered.
According to a Russian-to-English translator on Google, the site “FB.ru” says it is one of the biggest and most popular portals on the “Runet “- a social platform created by and for bloggers. Bloggers from all over Russia and the former Soviet states express their opinions in posts about citizenship and professional activities, hobbies, news, etc.
- Check for an Argument
Next, students should determine if the post makes an argument. They should remember from earlier learning that most social media posts seek to persuade us to believe or do something. Yet many posts don’t provide sufficient reasons for us to be persuaded, often because they rely on nonexistent or weak arguments. They should also remember that the image by itself cannot make an argument but that it can enhance the argument the text may make.
As they learned in my book, students should try to determine if the post contains the premises and conclusion to an argument. First, they should identify the post’s implicit and explicit sentences and put them in standard form:
- By 2050, 35% of US children will be Latino.—explicit
- Latino children are the heart of the US community.—explicit
- [The image suggests that all Latino children are happy and therefore likeable]—implicit
- It is the job of everyone [including you, dear reader] to help these Latino children pursue their dreams so they can enrich the community.—explicit [implicit]
- Therefore, [dear reader], get the foundation’s toolkit to help you do so.—explicit [implicit]
Students should identify about five sentences. Sentences 1, 2, and 4 are mostly explicit; sentence 3 is implicit. But the 5th sentence in bold, intended to be the conclusion, is a command. So we already know we do not have an argument. The 5th sentence urges readers to click on the link to the toolkit, which takes readers to a page that requests their name and email address.
Although the post does not make an argument because the 5th sentence is a command, students should continue to evaluate the first four sentences to determine if they could be premises. Students should recall that they can be premises if they are sufficiently clear so that most readers would have a shared understanding of what they mean and could determine whether they would be true/plausible or false.
Sentence 1 would not be sufficiently clear to at least some readers, because readers would probably have differing definitions of what “Latino” means. The provided source for the sentence is Pew Research Center; Google indicates the relevant report is from 2008.[3] The report clouds things further by using the terms “Latino” and “Hispanic” interchangeably. And without clarity, we can’t determine if the sentence can only be true/plausible or false. So sentence 1 cannot be a premise.
Sentence 2 is also too vague to act as a premise—what does “heart of” mean? Sentence 4 rests partly on sentence 2, so it becomes vague as well.
Now what about sentence 3? It is probably clear enough in the context of the other sentences; most readers will have a favorable impression of the children. But can we determine if it can be only true/plausible or false? Yes, we can certainly find credible reporting that not ALL Latino children are happy and therefore “likeable,” in the sense that happiness determines likeability.
So students can confidently say that this post does NOT make an argument, according to the basic principles of logic and argumentation. Sentences 1 and 2, and 4 are too vague for us to determine if they could be true/plausible or false, and sentence 5 is a command.
Too many of the sentences would need revision to cause the post to make an argument. I would not suggest having students revise them. Please see my next blog post for that exercise.
- Determine if the Argument Satisfies the Logic Condition
Students should say that they can’t determine this, because the post does not make an argument. They should elaborate as to why: sentences 1 and 2, and 4 are not sufficiently clear, and the conclusion is a command.
Check for Structural (Formal) Fallacies
Students should say they must skip this step as well because the post does not make argument. They should elaborate as to why: a structural fallacy is an argument—albeit a bad one–and because there is no argument here, there can’t be a structural fallacy.
- Can You Fact Check It?
Ask the students to discuss in groups whether they can fact-check sentences 1-4, They should determine that they can only fact-check the first sentence, and only IF they consider Latino and Hispanic to be one in the same.
- Find Trusted Coverage
Students who consider Latino and Hispanic as one in the same can fact-check sentence 1 by finding other media outlets they trust. In this case, Pew Research Center—the source that the post provided—is well respected. Click restraint reveals that many other outlets refer back to the Pew study. These students should conclude that sentence 1 is accurate.
- Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media to Their Original Context
Pew Research Center is the original source of the first sentence. The image first appeared on the Russian website, Посвящение в пятиклассники: сценарий праздника (fb.ru) on December 6, 2016. The post does not appear to have stripped any important context from these sources. Students cannot trace the other sentences to their original contexts because they appear to be originals as worded.
- Check for Manipulation Tactics
Students should determine that there are no manipulation tactics in the post.
- Check for Deceptive Use of Artificial Intelligence
Students should determine that there is no evidence of this in the post.
- Determine if the Argument Satisfies the Truth Condition
Students should say they can’t determine this, because the post does not make an argument. They should elaborate as to why: Most readers would need to agree that all the sentences are sufficiently clear to determine if the sentences are true/plausible or false, after fact-checking. That’s not the case here. Also, the conclusion is a command.
Check for Content (Informal) Fallacies
Students should say they can’t determine this either, because a content fallacy is an argument—albeit a bad one—and the post does not make an argument.
- Overall Evaluation of the Media
The post does not have indicators of disinformation as described in the Social Media News Evaluation Game and the Is It Misleading News? game.
This post does not make an argument, as the term is used in logic and argumentation. Sentences 1, 2, and 4 are too vague to determine if they can be true/plausible or false, and the conclusion is a command. Although not most readers would probably consider the mission of the We Are All Human foundation to be worthy and important, students should not be persuaded by the post.
[1] Celebrating the Human Family: Close-Up on the Hispanic Star Series (publishersweekly.com).
[2] MacMillan latest publisher to feature Latinos in kids’ books (axios.com)
Media Literacy Sleuth 
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