One-off Workshop: Fake News

Learning objectives

Working in collaborative groups, students develop both story making and characterisation skills through exploring a given scenario about the consequences of fake news and present a piece to their peers. 

Resources

• Newsround on fake news tinyurl.com/tdau2-oow
• The Guardian, ‘What is fake news?’ tinyurl.com/tdau2-oow1
• The Telegraph, ‘Fake news: What exactly is it?’ tinyurl.com/tdau2-oow2 
• YouTube, ‘What is fake news?’ tinyurl.com/tdau2-oow3

Warm-up (10 mins)

• In pairs, A tells B a true story about an incident that happened last week
• In same pairs, B adapts that story for A, adding a few small twists of untruth
• In same pairs, A tells B a total pack of lies story, which B believes and gets angry about

Instant belief

It’s thought that more than half of 12- to 15-year-olds can’t tell if social media news is fake or real. Most believe what they read and pass it on. Does it matter? Does anyone actually check what’s on social media? How can it be checked?
Teacher-led Discussion: Sometimes called ‘yellow journalism’ or deliberate misinformation through phoney websites or social media, fake news has become a catch-all phrase to discredit stories published online. Politicians do it about critical stories in which they feature. It’s a serious matter, because unless we can read what is true in our media, then democracy, freedom of speech and our way of life is at risk. Some prompts:

• Does anybody agree or disagree?
• Have any students noticed examples of fake news?
• People nowadays ‘like’ and spread things with a click and no thought – why?
• Some psychologists estimate we each tell about 15 untruths a day – when we spread them, the lies become ‘facts’. Lies: A few half truths about lies – lies are alternative facts; a liar needs a good memory; little white lies are harmless; liars are always caught in the end

Drama Skills: Useful skills to create two scenes include still images, cross-cutting, mime, narrators in and out of role, voice overs, slo-mo and replays.
Reactions: The challenge is to show how the character reacts to the fake news in a convincing, believable way so the audience doesn’t think it’s over the top or comical. Sometimes it’s better to show things on stage like anger, tears, fear, but other times it’s better to hint at it or have others report it.

Devising start points (20 mins)

Teacher puts students into groups of four to six, asking them to devise two short scenes around one of the following fake, untrue scenarios:

• A teenager reads they have been filmed in an embarrassing situation and falls apart
• A person starting a new job reads they were racist or sexist in the past; they lose the job without a chance to deny it
• An adult reads they have another family secretly; they lose the trust of their real family
• An adult reads they once helped a criminal to escape; the police come knocking.

Characters: Characters will need some background that can be shown, such as: How much does the teenager rely on the approval of friends? How hard was it to get the new job? Does the character know the spreader of fake news? Why would it be especially difficult for the character if the police came knocking?

Sharing the scenes (15 mins)

After selected shared group scenes, allow time for brief peer, self and teacher comment and assessment of their:

• use of drama techniques
• characters
• story
• credible use of fake news as a theme
• food for thought for an audience

Teacher-led plenary (5 mins)

Was the story you came up with believable? Did the characters you chose drive that story along successfully? Was the piece effective as a performance? What drama techniques did you employ and why? What changes would you make if you had time to polish it now? What did you learn about fake news

Follow-up

Related ideas to explore for future drama devising:

• Taking it further for the victim(s) of fake news
• Fake news leads to divorce
• A victim tries to get revenge
• Trying to remove it from social media without success
• Tightening up of the law and some innocent person gets caught up
• A fake news spreader gets a taste of their own medicine
• A future world where nobody believes anything online.