Grade 7 · Composition: Expressing Ideas and Creating Texts · Research, Misinformation, and Sources

Investigate a Claim

Online information may be inaccurate, misleading, deliberately false, or curated to keep attention. Research requires lateral checking beyond the first page.

The big idea

Verification happens across sources

A professional-looking page is not proof. Researchers investigate the creator, trace claims to original evidence, compare independent reliable sources, and examine whose perspectives are present or missing.

Work it through

Verify a widely shared statistic

1. State the exact claim and identify its original creator if possible.
2. Check date, expertise, evidence, purpose, and signs of bias.
3. Compare the claim with multiple independent reliable sources.
4. Synthesize agreements and differences, record every source, and qualify the conclusion when evidence is incomplete.