Information Literacy: Curriculum Development

Faculty Member: Joseph Musser, English Department
Librarian: Danielle Clarke, Public Services Librarian
Course: ENG 265, "Elements of Style and Rhetoric," spring 2003

A Description of the Project.

I propose to develop an information-literacy component of ENG 265, "Elements of Style and Rhetoric." My project would expand on a complex assignment I already use in the course. All students write a long paper based on work they have done throughout the semester. The class discusses each project at the end of the semester. As part of their projects students gather information, opinions, materials, relevant to their topics. Here are the instructions for the term project as they appear on my current syllabus:

  1. Commonplace Book (credit is included under #2 below). Write three entries each week. Email each week's installment to me so I will receive it by Monday morning. You also should run off hard copies of these entries and keep them in a folder or binder in chronological order as a back-up; and you FREQUENTLY should make back-up copies of your files to disk.
    In your entries you will seek and develop a term project (see number 2 below). You may include quotations from interesting sources, responses to relevant reading, freewriting, frantic explorations for a topic, short drafts of sections of your project, questions and plans for development. You need not be concerned with correctness in these entries. I and other students in the class will read them from time to time.

  2. Term Project (40%). On 16 April you must submit an essay on which you have been working from the beginning of the semester. I will have seen the development of your project in your Commonplace Book, and I will give you suggestions about it as I read your entries there. This essay may be in any style and of any type, except for what is normally regarded as fiction. (Examples abound in Oates as well as periodicals like The New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper's, etc.) It should be about a subject that deeply interests you, and about which you believe other students and I would like to read. Beginning in February, you will read from this Commonplace Book in small groups. You will make your Commonplace Book available for me and your small-group members via email. You will email your essay to all class members, so they can read and comment on it. All students in the class will read your essay and respond to it; two readers will comment extensively on it. You should consult frequently with other students as you develop your ideas.
    A final version of your term project will be due at the time the final examination is regularly scheduled. I will judge your project primarily on its effectiveness, though the amount of effort and imagination you have spent on its development will count as well.

The topics for these term projects range widely (not just English). Some topics have included, for example:

I have found that students often need to have both instruction and encouragement in finding materials to help them develop their term projects. They frequently seem stymied at locating books, articles, Web sites, paintings, reviews, diaries, examples, statistics, and so forth that would contribute to their thinking and writing about their topics. Because each student's project is unique and because I encourage them to venture beyond the usual academic exercise (though some choose not to), their searches for material often present unusual challenges. I encourage them to:

Often, however, they lack experience searching for information, books, essays, and so forth. They seldom have developed productive searching strategies, which frustrates and limits them. I have divided the class into small groups that meet periodically with me and also with Danielle Clarke, the Public Services Librarian. This approach holds great promise, but I would like to develop it more fully in order to use it to best effect. Therefore, in cooperation with Danielle Clarke, I propose to:

Timeline:

Summer of 2002:

Spring 2003:

Estimated Amount of Faculty & Librarian Time Needed:

Summer 2002, extending into fall 2002: 60 to 80 hours to prepare exercises and materials and design electronic programs and Web site. Some time will have to be spent learning to better use the available technology. This work will be a collaborative effort with Danielle Clarke, who not only has experience and expertise in designing such materials, but has worked informally with my ENG 265 students in the spring of 2002. Her experience with my ENG 265 students has helped determine how best to proceed with an information literacy project for the course, and will be invaluable as we develop materials for student use. Though much work will be done during the summer, it will be finished up in the fall.

Spring 2003: Both Danielle Clarke and Joseph Musser will meet twice each week with different small groups of students in ENG 265 (sub-sets from the course), each meeting being approximately one-half hour; they will spend additional time meeting with individual students (approximately two conferences each). These meetings and conferences would occur over seven weeks during the middle of the semester. The total time would be about 30 hours each (14 hours in small-group meetings, 16 hours in conferences).

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