Proposal: Information Literacy in the English Curriculum, Phase 2

Faculty: Nancy Grace & Peter Havholm, Department of English
Librarian: Denise Monbarren, Special Collections Librarian

Proposal Overview

This proposal requests the resources necessary to complete a sequence of web pages to be used in the English Department core curriculum; Jenna Hayward has already carried out the pilot phase of this project in planning and storyboarding it. Nancy Grace will now present the proposal to the Department of English for discussion and revision, make changes and additions to the basic web page structure as suggested by the Department, and collect any resources that Department members are willing to share (syllabi, assignments etc.). Concurrently, Peter Havholm will begin creating a structure of web pages to house the content agreed upon by the Department, though of course he will not finalized the pages until the Department has agreed upon their structure and materials. Jenna Hayward will also retain some involvement with the project, as consultant and contributor of materials. We plan to have some pages completed and ready for use in the curriculum by January 2001; the entire sequence will be completed by May 2001.

The rationale for this project has not changed since the pilot phase began; therefore the project description below is drawn from our original proposal:

In the past few years, the Department has been working to refine its collective understanding of our curriculum and to ensure that all sections of the core courses accomplish the same basic goals, so that each faculty member can assume specific competencies and build on these from course to course. A systematic sequence of web pages, developed in collaboration with librarians, would help us to help all students acquired the basic research tools and critical thinking skills they need as they move towards Senior I.S.

The web pages will facilitate the development of discipline-specific information literacy in a four-tier sequence, as outlined below. The sequence will consist of informational resources combined with active learning components (including broadly constructed assignments to be modified to fit specific syllabi, and web-based tutorials to be used as follow-up by students in need of reminders). Both assignments and tutorials will focus on developing students' understanding of the range of resources available and on fostering critical thinking skills, including the ability to: determine which type of resource is most appropriate for a given research need; pursue searches and refine search questions; evaluate information for appropriateness and reliability; and synthesize and communicate information in writing. To help students keep the end goal of information literacy in mind, the website will provide links to a range of finished products: sample "excellent" papers (which will be password protected to prevent plagiarism by students off campus), student magazines, digital videos and other creative class projects, and so on. These will demonstrate, to students, the range and quality of work we expect as well as the intellectual processes that enabled the student authors of these texts to set interesting questions for themselves, locate and assimilate the information they needed to answer their questions, and organize their findings into useful and engaging forms.

These web resources will have significant advantages:

1. The pages will help us to integrate our curriculum by establishing clear information-literacy goals for each course in the sequence and allowing us to assume specific competencies of students in all courses. These competencies will be developed in class and in relation to specific assignments; however, if at a later date students need to refresh their memories of particular research sources techniques, we will be able to steer them towards online tutorials that will remind them of material covered in classes.
2. The pages will use faculty and librarian time more efficiently; we currently spend quite a bit of time helping individual students to locate and assess resources, determine which types of resources to use with specific topics, reshape research questions in response to findings, and so on. In Junior and Senior I.S. these sessions can be especially time consuming and seem unnecessarily burdensome: by that stage in their education students should know how to find resources for themselves, but they often lack confidence in their abilities. With a clear and systematic sequence of information literacy instruction, we will know the basic competencies our students have developed, we can help them develop more sophisticated research skills before they begin I.S., and we will have a resource to steer them towards if they do not seem to have mastered basic research skills before beginning Independent Study. Students will also be able to take initiative in improving their own research skills, since they will know exactly where to go for discipline-specific help online.
3. Developing these pages as a collaborative effort between faculty and library staff will strengthen the connections between critical thinking, library research, and discipline-specific research methods. Collaboration will also ensure that faculty are kept current on online resources.
4. Active learning assignments for each level of information literacy will reinforce the concepts while helping students integrate new kinds of resources into their writing. The assignments will be linked to tutorials for students who need extra help mastering research concepts they've previously covered in class, thus minimizing faculty and librarian time spent playing catch-up.
5. The pilot phase of this project, completed over the summer, has been successful: we now have a storyboard outlining the oganization of content and tutorials to be included in each phase of our information literacy instruction, and we also have quite a bit of content for the pages. Denise Monbarren offered valuable suggestions for additions to the pages, and these will be incorporated; we have also asked for her continued assistance in advising us about the most essential databases for various kinds of literary research and in helping us to locate a good basic range of online archival sources to be included in our pages for Independent Study students.

Phase 2 of the project will be completed over the course of the academic year (September to May), at a rate of 4.25 hours per week (for a total of 120 hours, or 3 weeks). Nancy Grace will focus on the Department's assessment of and contributions to the project, and Peter Havholm will focus on implementation of the web page sequence. Both have already begun and will continue until the project has been completed.

Specific goals for each level of this project follow: (these are substantially the same as in t he original proposal, with the addition of suggestions from Cardina, Grace, Havholm, and Monbarren and with changes suggested by these contributors as well).

Level 1: English 120 (the first course required for the English major, and an introduction to literary analysis and theory taken by non-majors as well).

By the end of this course, students should be competent in basic research skills, including:

• evaluating web pages and other internet resources for authenticity, accuracy and reliability.
• understanding issues of intellectual property and copyright, protocols for properly citing sources, the ease with which plagiarism can occur when using online sources, and the necessity of avoiding plagiarism (this understanding should be firm and explicit, to serve as a foundation for future classes).
• knowing how to apply the MLA documentation style (or another consistent style) to essays.
• understanding the difference between print and online resources.
• effectively using Consort to find print materials in our library and to order materials from other libraries.
• acquiring basic research skills for use in class presentations, essay introductions, etc.:
• understanding the difference between reviews of literary works and literary criticism as well as how to locate and use each for particular purposes.
• locating, evaluating, and using major reference works tertiary resources to provide background and biographical information about authors, critics, and theorists; understanding how, why, and when to use such resources in literary studies (major reference works would include OED, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, literary dictionaries, Encyclopedia Britannica etc.; tertiary resources would include subject encyclopedias, DLB, Contemporary Authors, etc.)

More advanced students should also be able to locate the most recent sources (journal articles) on a topic.
Resources provided on these pages will include representative course syllabi as well as password-protected materials for faculty (links to sites with information on guarding against student plagiarism, assignments on web site evaluation, etc.)

Level 2: English 200 (the second course required for the English major; students begin to see themselves as writers, to think about the complex interchange between reading and writing, and to grapple with the range and kinds of questions asked in literary theory).

By the end of this course, students should be introduced to discipline-specific resources and approaches, including:

• developing research questions and paper topics, and refining these in response to research findings; understanding the relationship between received knowledge and the production of new knowledge in the discipline of literary studies.
• becoming comfortable with using librarians in the research process.
• increasing familiarity with basic tools for accessing information--including catalogs, indexes, and bibliographies--in both print and electronic format, with a particularly clear understanding of the structure of electronic databases.
• using Consort, Ohiolink, and FirstSearch (and other standard literature databases) to find print materials.
• understanding the difference between secondary and primary sources and knowing when to use each.
• understanding the concept of peer review in the dissemination of information in the profession.
• locating, evaluating, and using research articles from peer-reviewed journals.
• increasing the sophistication of research strategies: locating published bibliographies, assessing bibliographic entries without ordering every one of them, targeting key sources and use those to find other sources, and refining research questions and search strategies as research progresses.
• exploring the range of literary resources available online (especially in relation to primary sources, literary theory etc.); differentiating between resources provided free on the internet and other electronic resources (e.g., My Faves by Toni Morrison Page versus JSTOR journals such as African-American Review)
• Beginning to understand the concept of interdisciplinary work and the range of resources required to carry it out successfully.

Resources provided on these pages will include, for students, representative course syllabi, links to information on careers in literary studies, links to web sites and tutorials on developing and refining research questions and locating and assessing sources, and links to archives (selected College of Wooster databases, Women Writers Online, UC Berkeley's Guide to Primary Sources, etc.). Resources for faculty will be password-protected, and will include assignments providing guided freedom in developing paper topics, sample research assignments, etc.

Level 3: English 401 (Perspectives and Methods in Independent Study)

By the end of this course, students should be comfortable developing paper topics, refining research questions, locating discipline-specific resources, and assessing those resources; they should be competent at:

• locating both secondary and primary materials, online or in archives, including:
• using databases to find the most recent work on their topics (in journals).
• locating articles in online journals and ordering them from other libraries.
• locating and accessing primary materials, online or in archives.
• understanding the difficulties and rewards of interdisciplinary work and knowing how to find basic materials necessary for specific types of interdisciplinary projects (including resources on history, women's studies etc.).

Resources provided on these pages will include representative course syllabi, links to suggested databases and archives (as for 200 above but with greater emphasis on online journals and journal databases), and links to databases and archives of primary sources (University of Idaho's list of Repositories of Primary Sources; Berkeley Digital Library's Jack London collection; Chadwyck-Healey's Historical Newspapers Online, etcetera). Password-protected materials for faculty and students (examples of Junior Independent Studies taking a range of approaches, sample Introductions of excellent 401 essays, assignments requiring students to locate a range of materials, summaries of research approaches and methodologies, etc.).

Level 4: English 451-452: Senior Independent Study

Early in the first semester of Senior I.S., students should:

• follow a refresher course (provided online) in the methods of finding and evaluating information, thinking through the requirements of interdisciplinary projects, etc., as developed above.
• develop their own set of links to primary materials, archives, and other specialized resources for their topic.

Resources provided on these pages will include password-protected materials for faculty and students (abstracts of a range of departmental Independent Studies, sample Introductions from critical, fictional, and interdisciplinary Independent Studies, etc.).

[This page incorporates standards from the Five Colleges Information Literacy Home Page, Anne Jordan-Baker's draft version of "Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education: English or American Literature Majors" (LES/ACRL, 7/11/2000) as well as suggestions from Christen Cardina, Nancy Grace, Julia Gustafson, Peter Havholm and Denise Monbarren.]

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