composition

Scholarship is Not Neutral: Using Positionality Statements for Source Evaluation

Beginning college students often make assumptions that scholarly sources are inherently bias-free. Students may also hold the belief that if they find a source through a library database, it is automatically a useful and neutral viewpoint on a topic. These mindsets can limit students’ motivation to apply evaluation strategies beyond establishing credibility based on the author’s credentials.This lesson plan introduces the concept of positionality statements to help students understand that scholars do not leave their identities and life experiences behind when they conduct research. Students practice a new way to evaluate and understand the perspective–and limitations–that scholars bring to their research.The lesson plan is designed for first-year composition courses in which students are asked to develop a research topic based on their interests or experiences. It could be adapted for upper-level undergraduate courses in the social sciences.

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EnglishMultidisciplinary
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Linked Threshold Concepts in First Year Writing Composition and Information Literacy Instruction

This chart is the result of a partnership between campus Writing Coordinator,  First Year Seminar Coordinator, and myself (Information Literacy Coordinator) to create a customizable assignment structure for our first year seminar class. It offers a template for integrating information literacy into the course and links threshold concepts of writing composition to the Framework. Composition threshold concepts are those outlined by Kassner and Wardle (2015) Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies.

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Rhetorical Reinventions: Rethinking Research Processes and Information Practices to Deepen our Pedagogy

This resource includes files and links for the conference paper and slides of the presentation Rhetorical Reinventions: Rethinking Research Processes and Information Practices to Deepen our Pedagogy, presented at LOEX 2016 by Donna Witek, Mary J. Snyder Broussard, and Joel M. Burkholder. Both the slides and the paper include a detailed bibliography of related resources.Presentation/Paper Abstract:The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy offers instruction librarians an opportunity to reconsider not only how they teach but also how they think about research and information. This new thinking has the potential to reinvent instructional practices, resulting in learning that is both situated and transferable. The discipline of rhetoric can inform this effort.This presentation will consider three traditional “steps” of the research process: question formulation, information search, and source evaluation. Traditional approaches over-simplify each activity: broaden the question by including related elements or narrow it by concentrating on a specific time/area/population; follow these steps to find the “correct” number and types of sources; and evaluate information based on the presence of external characteristics.Yet when information literacy is approached rhetorically, librarians can partner with classroom faculty to teach much more meaningful and transferable information literacy knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Librarians can then guide students in the complex processes of navigating the expectations of disciplinary audiences and developing a critical self-awareness of themselves as scholarly contributors; engaging with search tools, strategies, and processes in ways that are flexible, iterative, and exploratory by design; and comprehending more fully their information sources for deeper evaluation that better meets their own rhetorical goals. In an interactive presentation, the presenters will explore how rhetoric and composition theories have the potential—with creative and strategic thinking—to work in synergy with the Framework, make information literacy more authentic and meaningful, and develop true lifelong learners.

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