PREVIEW Lesson Plans, Activities, Assignments - For Rhetoric Instructors

PDP Fall 2021 Presentation Resources

Evaluating Sources Activity w/ Source Deck
A slide deck containing instructions and materials for guiding students through an activity to get them started evaluating sources. The small group activity with large group sharing prompts in-class and often honest conversations about the nuances of evaluating sources. The sources used as examples in this deck can certainly be changed to support course-specific learning objectives.

TAs and faculty have asked students to rank the sources as a pre-class assignment in preparation for a librarian visit. This often occurs around the same time the final two major assignments (Mapping a Complex Topic/Controversy) are assigned. This helps prime students for conversation.

This activity could be assigned in advance in conjunction with assigning students watch the RADS videos on lateral reading, episodes 5 & 6.

When assigned in advance students are given the following instructions:

Review the slides. Each numbered slide contains a resource you might use for your upcoming assignment. Review each slide. If you had to put the slides in a list from leas credible to most credible, how would you arrange the slides? During your evaluation, try to use only the information provided to you on the slides. NOTE: There is no wrong answer here.

1. Once you've decided how you'd rank the sources, record the slide numbers in order of your ranking. For example, you might write: 4,1,6,2,3,5

2. In 5-7 sentences, write a brief summary of your ranking an dhow you made the decisions to rank in your particular order.

Integrated Information Literacy Examples

See the TOPIC Generation and Teaching Research as Inquiry book chapter for an example of a process-based teaching module that includes activities, assignments, and an informal, low-stakes workshop that supports student development of research topics aimed at first-year college students. Suggested assessment activities and instruments are also provided. The TOPIC teaching module is the product of collaboration between a Rhetoric instructor and a member of The University of Iowa Libraries' Undergraduate Engagement Librarian team.

See the IDEAL 'Show What You Know,' 'Rhetoric in Knowledge Communities,' or 'Archives Alive' projects as examples of products of previous librarian/instructor collaboration. Rather than providing information literacy as an additional requirement, information literacy concepts and activities have been infused throughout each of these assignments.

ideal.uiowa.edu/projects/#information-literacy

Information Literacy a la carte

Information Literacy á la carte is a set of stand-alone information literacy modules that can be used "as is" or customized for your individual classes. They are currently hosted on Google Docs, and can be used online, or downloaded and customized by following these directions:
bit.ly/infolit-alacarte-google-drive

ideal.uiowa.edu/projects/#information-literacy

Archives Alive!

This assignment asks students to delve into the world of primary source material. Students transcribe a document in the University of Iowa Libraries' DIY History project. These transcriptions make handwritten documents computer searchable and further the Libraries’ efforts to publicize these materials.

Students then hone research skills and skills of rhetorical analysis by composing a blog post, screencast, and presentation that demonstrate the document’s rhetorical construction and its place in history. This assignment invites students to consider the world out of which the document arose.

ideal.uiowa.edu/projects/#archives-alive
Learn more about the collaboration that went into creating this assignment here: Archives Alive!: librarian-faculty collaboration and an alternative to the five-page paper