LibGuides: ENG 103/201: Composition: Additional Learning Opportunities

Additional Learning Opportunities

Optional: Import the "Using Images From the Web" module from the Canvas Commons.

This is an optional module about using images and other media found on the open web. You may want to consider including it if your course involves a media component (to give your students a refresher). Note that this module's content has been included in the library content for ENG 101 in 2023-2024.

Optional: Import the "MLA Crash Course 9th edition" module from the Canvas Commons.

This is an optional module that provides training on MLA 9th edition, a practice exam, and a graded exam.

Optional: Import the "Searching for Arguments and Counterarguments" module from the Canvas Commons.

This is an optional module about search strategies for finding arguments and building background knowledge on a topic. You may want to consider including it if your course involves an argumentative paper or other assignment.

Optional: Refer students to the Composition research guide.

To aid students in their research, we have created a step-by-step research guide (you are here!) full of tutorials, tips/tricks, relevant databases, and more. Encourage your students to take advantage of this resource!

Optional: Encourage your students to book a research consultation.

Librarians (including the Information Literacy Librarian for English Composition!) are available to meet with your students in-person or online by appointment. Encourage them to take advantage of this service to ask questions, get support, or get ahead in their research at any stage in the process. You may find it helpful to share how the library has helped you with your research or teaching so students know that even experts seek out these resources!

The following websites offer additional guidance on creating assignments and/or information literacy:

Creating Assignments

Effectively Use the Library in Your Class (from UNCW Library)
Effective Library Assignments (from CSU Long Beach)

Information Literacy

Instructional Repository

Below are ideas for lesson plans, activities, and tips for teaching information literacy concepts in your classroom. Please feel free to use, adapt, and ask questions - I am happy to discuss how best to integrate these ideas into your class! Don't see something you need? Email me!

If you use one of these, please submit a feedback form so we can track how these are used and make improvements!

Submit Feedback/Share Usage

Decoding the Disciplines
Decoding is a pedagogical framework designed to uncover "hidden curricula" and make our implicit understandings about our disciplines explicit to students, unjamming areas where students get stuck in learning. This may be particularly useful in modeling how you might approach understanding a task that requires disciplinary understanding, like synthesizing information from a scholarly article!

Decoding the Research Process Worksheet
I created this worksheet as a guide for you to work through Decoding as it applies to the research process. Use this as a way to backward design a lesson plan about an information literacy concept.

Using AI to Evaluate Conspiracy Theories: "How to use the Well-Grounded AI Argument Analyzer"
A short video from mis/disinformation expert Mike Caulfield on using ChatGPT as a tool to break down arguments in consipracy theory trends on social media.
"SIFT: Evaluating Web Content"
This short video from Wayne State University Libraries introduces Mike Caulfield's SIFT Method for evaluating information. This is built into the information literacy modules in Canvas and is taught in much more depth in First-Year Seminars. Many of your students will have learned this technique, so familiarity with this method helps for shared vocabulary!

Activity: Tracing the Scholarly Conversation
This worksheet, adapted from work by Jane Hammons at The Ohio State University, asks groups of students to follow the chain of a scholarly conversation: when did this begin? Where are they publishing? Who are the big players? How is the conversation changing over time? This activity also gets students familiar with how to "citation mine" using Google Scholar.

Instructor Canvas Course: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Information and Digital Literacies
Use this link to self-enroll in our instructor Canvas course! This QEP large team project includes content of all kinds: lesson plans, readings, tutorials, and more on topics ranging from AI to privacy literacy to citations and plagiarism.
Interactive Virtual Library Tour
Help your students get familiar with the library's spaces, services, and resources! This tour allows students to immerse themselves in our spaces, find more information, and learn about services they may not have known about.

Question Formulation Technique Slides
These slides, created by Sciences Librarian Sam Zelick for the Critical Information Literacy Immersion Program, walk you through how you might use the Question Formulation Technique as a way to approach guiding students through open-ended inquiry in selecting research questions.

ACRL Framework Sandbox
The sandbox is a place to discover ways to use the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education in instructional settings, as well as share your own activities and teaching resources related to the Framework.
Information Literacy Reflection Tool
The Information Literacy Reflection Tool is adapted in the IL Canvas modules, but you can also use their worksheets to ask students to reflect on their own information behaviors and start conversation.
"Lizard People in the Library"
A 2021 article from information expert Barbara Fister about conspiratorial thinking and information literacy as part of Project Information Literacy's Provocation Series.