Good evening to all RSWL folks & happy beginning of the semester!

I am writing with a few brief remarks about my project.

My project concerns information literacies in the English major--but of course I hope I can be in dialogue with other departments too. In several ways, I am responding to longstanding complaints that our students --even in our senior seminars--have not completed research papers or, in fact, had much experience incorporating secondary sources. Even today (around hour 11 of my day) one of my MA students three papers away from graduation said to me "I have never completed research; how do I do it?" And this in a program where there is a dedicated methodology course! Where is the place of research and information literacy in our undergrad. curriculum and how can this be enhanced?

If I were to articulate an overall goal for my project (extending from now through Fall 2006) it would be to think about the ways in which information literacies can be woven more deeply into our curriculum, to provide (hopefully really nifty) research exercises for a variety of our courses, and to create something of a "buzz" around information literacies in our department--or at least get a few people interested in it.
This will involve at least one workshop.

I have a good starting point: the Middle States Commission on Higher Education produced an excellent report in 2002 outlining possible guidelines for information literacy in the undergrad. curriculum. It's a smart and toughminded report and a real inspiration. I will read other research on the matter of information literacy. Then I will survey a number of our English majors about their levels of information literacy.

The questions I ask will be shaped by my research into information literacy -- and conversations with our colleagues in the library. I'll certainly ask them about the instruction they've received in formal paper writing but also get them to say if they've worked with certain databases/resources/ tools. I might try and probe whether they recognize a distinction between journalistic sources and academic sources. I don't know yet what I need to ask, so I am hoping for some feedback on the survey part of it. And maybe some handholding from my social science colleagues! I did not realize when I proposed the project that I needed to collect data--and of course my intellectual world is not an empirical world--so I need to think about what it means to survey people and how to respond to the information collected.

Where I go from there will depend on the kind of responses I get back. I'll probably ask faculty to do some kind of survey as well. What shall I ask my colleagues? I guess I will ask them what research teaching they do and what they wish their students already knew about research & information technology [without having to be taught information literacy] & what obstacles they face at Queens as they try and teach research.

So then I'll do the sample exercises and readings...and a research blog of some kind ... and a faculty workshop.

So that's the beginning!

I look forward to seeing you all and talking bloggishly until then!
yours,
caeh

Hi everyone--
I'm sorry for being slack in my contribution, but I'll get my spring project description off in the next day or two.
Sarah

Hi All,

I'm writing to sketch out my idea for my spring project. I often teach advanced thematic history seminars, of which the central focus is the term paper that all students must submit by the semester's end. Several different times, I have experimented with holding writing workshops for students. My experimentation has never been very systematic, and my results have never been very positive. I am convinced that there is a way of designing a writing workshop that would prove productive for students. I'm also concinved that I have been reinventing the wheel, so to speak; I'm sure that there are published studies on this technique of teaching writing, and I would like to investigate them. I want to use this project as an opportunity to take the time to design a very well thought out workshop for my students that would give them the opportunity to revise and rethink their writing though sharing it with a group. My project, then, would consist of researching and designing a writing workshop, which I would then implement in my History 392W class this semester. I will share the results of this experiment at the very least by writing up a memo to distribute to you.

This project echoes some of the other RSWL participants' interest in peer review --how to do it, evaluate its efficacy, etc.-- and so I look forward to speaking about this with you all in person and hearing your ideas.

I have a second idea, as well. I am interested in organizing a panel discussion about teaching writing. This panel would be composed of STUDENTS, and not of teachers. I, for one, would really love to hear students' thoughts on the writing process. What better way than to ask them? When I was a graduate student teacher, I organized a similar panel and it was enormously successful and useful. The students loved the fact that their experience and opinion mattered, too. The trick would be to organize it at a time when people would actually show up, and to publicize it aggressively to ensure a respectable audience. It would also be necessary to invite a variety of students who would feel comfortable speaking somewhat publicly on this issue.

I look forward to hearing everyone's opinion on this.

Best wishes,

Amy