Run the WATER Check: Classroom Kit, Level One

Five periods. One routine. No expiration date.

Most media literacy units age out in a year, because they are built on the examples that were circulating when somebody wrote them. This one is built on the routine instead. You bring the content your students are actually arguing about this week. The five steps do not change.

W Wait. A Ask. T Trace. E Examine. R Respond.

What you get

• Teacher Guide, 8 pages. Unit overview, five lesson plans with minute by minute timing, and the teacher moves that make each lesson work. Including the ones that keep it from turning into "you can't trust anything."
• Student Handouts, 7 pages. One per lesson, plus a wall poster and a sheet of pocket cards. Prints in black and white. Works without devices.
• Assessment Pack, 6 pages. A single point rubric, the WATER Defense performance task, and a teacher key that scores the reasoning rather than the verdict. Plus the four arguments your students will make and what to do with each one.
• Slide Deck, 17 slides. Editable PowerPoint. Change it, cut it, put your own examples in it.

Who this is for

Journalism, ELA, social studies, library, and anyone who teaches an advisory period and is tired of the canned character education slides. Written for grades 7 through 12. The lessons work with no novel, no textbook, and no subscription.

Three ways to run it

One week of consecutive periods. One period a week for five weeks. Or Lesson 1 in full and then the Trace Race as a twenty minute bell ringer whenever something blows up online.

That third option is what most teachers actually do, and the kit is built to survive it.

What it is not

It is not a fact checking curriculum, and it will not tell your students which sources to trust. The target is calibrated trust: a student who can say how sure she is, why, and what would change her mind.

A student who leaves believing nothing has not learned to think. He has learned to shrug.

Written by a teacher who is still in the room

Eric Jourgensen, Ed.D., has taught high school journalism since 2002 and advises about 180 student journalists. Before the classroom he wrote for MTV News, which mostly taught him how fast a story falls apart when nobody checks it. He built the WATER Check because his students kept asking a question he could not answer in one sentence.

Licensing

• Single teacher. One teacher, their own students, print as many handouts as your classes need.
• Department. Up to 10 teachers in one building.
• School site. Every teacher in one school, one year.

Instant download. One zip with all four documents, delivered the moment you check out.

Want a half day that trains your whole department to run this? Booking at ericjourgensen.com/speaking.