PitchIt! offers essay contest for M-DCPS students to promote news literacy

M-DCPS middle schools and high schools are invited to participate in “PitchIt!” — an essay contest designed to address the problems of disinformation campaigns.

Students are being asked to write an essay of 500 to 1,000 words about a local, national or international story that would have benefited from literacy skills being applied to stop misinformation from being spread.

The contest comes from the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan national education nonprofit, provides programs and resources for educators and the public to teach, learn and share the abilities needed to be smart, active consumers of news and information and equal and engaged participants in a democracy.

“We’re very pleased to be working with Miami-Dade County Public Schools to encourage students to use their voices as a catalyst for positive change in our communities,” said Monica Valdes, NLP’s Miami Newslit Nation ambassador.

“Our learning goals for this contest include helping students analyze different types of misinformation and showcasing their ability to think critically about what is and is not verifiable information,” Valdes said. “When we fail to teach news literacy, we actively disempower students from being engaged members of their communities. That’s why we hope students and teachers from across the district will enter and participate.”

Students will choose from one of three prompts to consider the impact the story had and whether false claims about it could be debunked using reputable and verifiable sources of information. The prompts include explaining how the First Amendment protects freedom of the press; how citizens can fact-check well-known figures; and why sharing reliable information is a civic responsibility.

The three middle school winners and three high school winners will be able to share their essay ideas with the “Pitchlt!” judges, including education reporter Colleen Wright of the Miami Herald and Jessica Bakeman of WLRN, South Florida’s NPR member station. The judges will choose the idea that would have best prevented misinformation from being spread. The winning student and teacher will each receive $100. Second-place finishers will receive $50 and third-place winners will be awarded $25.

The deadline for entries has been extended to 5 p.m. on May 15. Winners will be chosen the week of May 24.

Schools should submit their top two winning essays per grade band via email to: Ms. Monica Valdes, Miami Newslit Ambassador, mdvaldes@dadeschools.net

For more information, go to: https://newslit.org/updates/news-literacy-essay-contest/