A lesson on QAnon for teachers to use in class - The Washington Post

A lesson on QAnon for teachers to use in class - The Washington Post

A lesson on QAnon for teachers to use in class

During the school year, I publish lessons from the nonprofit News Literacy Project, which aims to teach students how to distinguish fact from fiction in the age of digital communication and a president who routinely denounces real news as “fake.”

The lessons come from the project’s newsletter, the Sift, which takes the most recent viral rumors, conspiracy theories, hoaxes and journalistic ethics issues and turns them into timely lessons with discussion prompts and links. The Sift, which is published weekly during the school year, has more than 10,000 subscribers, most of them educators. It resumes publication on Sept. 14.

Earlier this year, I published a lesson for teachers from the Sift to use in class to explore with students the QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that President Trump will save the world from a “deep state” cult of pedophiles who eat children, worship the devil and run the country’s most powerful institutions.

I am republishing it now because this summer the QAnon theory has entered mainstream politics, with Trump embracing political candidates who support it.

QAnon theory was supposedly started by an anonymous person called Q who claims on social media to have a top-level security clearance to access government secrets about a left-wing conspiracy against Trump. The FBI issued a bulletin last May, warning that QAnon extremists are now considered a domestic terrorism threat.

However crazy QAnon conspiracy theory may sound, it is believed to have many followers. Facebook this month cracked down on QAnon accounts after discovering material on them had reached millions of people.

On Aug. 19 at a White House news conference, Trump praised supporters of QAnon, suggesting that CONTINUE READING: A lesson on QAnon for teachers to use in class - The Washington Post