Unpacking Lateral Reading through Practice and Reflection: Metacognitive Strategies of Critical Source Evaluation

Increasingly librarians are moving away from checklist approaches like CRAAP and advocating for “lateral reading” as a way to quickly evaluate the credibility of online sources. Essentially “lateral reading” is spending little time on a website and more time reading what other sources say about the website in order to quickly evaluate its credibility. While seemingly simple, lateral reading strategies are not always as straightforward as they first appear. Participants will practice lateral reading and consider ways to encourage students to bring metacognitive and critical thinking skills to using lateral reading for source evaluation. Learning objectives: To become familiar with lateral reading as an approach to online source evaluation. Reflect on and discuss the advantages and the challenges of teaching lateral reading. Develop teaching strategies in response to stumbling blocks with lateral reading