LibGuides: Teaching information skills effectively: Interacting with multiple perspectives

Scholarship as conversation

Classroom instructors can set up learners for success in the research and writing process when they help learners lay a strong foundation of skills related to interacting with multiple perspectives and voices other than their own.

Sample assignment prompts:

Working with source tables [download a fixed PDF copy]
Source tables are an accessible way for students to engage with sources. They can help students focus on the information they need from a particular source, while reducing anxiety and creating building blocks for writing. A link to a customizable version of the worksheet can be found immediately below

Working with source tables [copy a customizable version]
Customizable Google Doc version of the worksheet above. Can be customized by the instructor and/or can be completed by students in a copy of this Google Doc. [Requires logging into a Google account to generate a copy]

The conversational nature of sources
Activity helps underscore the ways that research is like different “conversations.” Suggests ways to help students learn to piece together those different conversational strands and to consider how they can enter into the discussion.
Reading scholarly articles: Joining the conversation
Helps demystify scholarly journal articles. Could be used as an assignment to give to students or for an instructor to use as a discussion guide.

Sample lessons and learning activities:

Are you talking to me?
An introduction to how writers/sources are in a dynamic conversation with each other.
Interacting with others' voices
A sequence of activities for building the fundamental skills of summarizing,
paraphrasing, and direct quotations. (As prerequisites for independent searching).

Other resources for planning info skills teaching:

Reading Games book chapter
"An examination of the elements of a rhetorical reading strategy—conceptualizing reading as part of an academic conversation, reading actively (and what this looks like), figuring out primary and secondary audiences, recognizing road maps embedded in the reading, and identifying the main argument and why it matters"