Incorporating Information Literacy into the Classroom

• When might it be a good idea to use a popular rather than a scholarly source?

• What does it mean to be an authority in different contexts? Who is an authority in your community, family, place of worship, sporting events?

• Do you agree that those who create scholarly materials are more authoritative than those who create popular sources? Why or why not?

• What is the information cycle and how does it influence our choice of sources for different topics?

When asking students to find specific types of resources (books, scholarly articles), keep in mind where the topic fits in the information cycle. (Click on image below to expand.)

• Ask students to find a scholarly source and a popular source on the same topic. How do they differ in perspective, content, treatment?

• Cut up the sections of a scholarly article and put them in order of what to read first. 

• Compare two primary sources in your field – how are they different?

• Poll the class on something (like what they had for breakfast). Ask students to figure out how to turn it into a secondary source.

• Compare the way two different disciplines handle the same topic.

• Have students look up statistics/census data about their hometown. What information is available?

• Have students find a government website in your field and ask them to explore the site and share their findings.