7 Internet Hoaxes to Teach in Middle School ELA
The Internet is a weird place. When I was in middle school, the only real danger was getting abducted by a creepy old man from a chat room, but it’s come a long way since then. One of my goals before sending my students off to high school is to make sure they understand how to evaluate Internet sources and they know what or whom to trust. (I discuss several ideas for teaching source evaluation in my free pdf of 144 teaching ideas.) One of my favorite ways to start this discussion about source reliability is to introduce my students to a variety of strange Internet hoaxes. Some of the best are:
1. Shark on the highway
This hoax actually got me. A hurricane had just ripped through Texas, and many of the towns were flooded up to the rooftops. A picture of a shark swimming on the highway began to circulate the Internet, and it kind of made sense! Alas, a quick reverse-image search will reveal that this image was a fake.
2. Canada half-cat
I don’t personally fall for half-animal hoaxes, but Canada’s kind of a different place, so . . .
3. Onion chargers
A while back, people kept claiming that onions and Gatorade could charge a phone. I’ll never quite understand why or how this hoax got started, but it’s not too far off from the phony TikTok “hacks” we see today.
4. Hercules dog
This hoax was pretty simple—a photoshopped picture of a horse-sized dog, but still got some media attention. This sparks some interesting classroom discussions. Why is a large animal newsworthy? What purpose could a person have in circulating a fake image of a dog? Honestly, there are more questions than answers.
5. Bird poop on Putin
As often as these politicians give speeches outside, how hasn’t this happened yet?
6. Derbyshire fairy
Someone found a cluster of leaves and such that looked like a fairy, and the Internet couldn’t handle it. This is a great hoax for students to evaluate with the CRAAP test (I explain the CRAAP test in greater detail in my free pdf of teaching ideas for every 7th-grade ELA standard).
7. Baby-snatching eagle
Apparently, some people have too much time on their hands; a photoshopped image of an eagle stealing a baby made the rounds on the Internet not that long ago. There are enough scary things in the world already without making up fake ones!
These hoaxes are just a few examples of how we can be duped when we believe everything we see on the Internet. Instead, let's have conversations with our students about how we can effectively evaluate sources and get to the bottom of the truth.
