Information Literacy for General Education Breadth Courses  Tags: general_education breadth information_literacy  

The following activities are designed for classes with fewer than 100 students, or classes in which TAs can assist in grading written work.

1. Research Paper: Using Primary and Secondary Sources to explore "the thing" that humanities scholars do.
Created by Charlie Huenemann for USU 1320.
Class size: @100 students

Students read a classic work, find a scholarly article that discusses that work, and write a short paper summarizing the classic work, the scholarly article, and their own thoughts. A good example of a traditional research paper that focuses on the introductory nature of general education and the need to scaffold assignments with specific steps, expectations, and potential difficulties. Complete assignment description.

2. Islamic History and the News (scroll down to Paper #1 for the assignment description)
Created for HIST 1060 by Debra Baldwin, Department of History
Class size: @50-100 students

Students find a news story related to Islam and, applying their new knowledge of Islamic history, analyze how and why the event unfolded in a particular way.

3. Making Connections between Lectures and Scholarly Literature

Have students find one scholarly article related to something that you lectured about in class. Encourage students to find something that challenges, of offers an alternative explanation, to something you said in class. Students can either summarize their article at the beginning or end of class, with each student getting one turn by the end of the semester. They can also hand in written summaries or post summaries to an electronic bulletin board (e.g. Blackboard).

4. Creating and Reviewing Online Exhibits

Using the personal folder feature in ArtStor, have students create an online "exhibit." Have another student review that exhibit.

The following activities are designed for classes with more than 100 students.

1. Finding the Best Article
Adapted by Deleyne Wentz from “Suggestions For Assignments” from Gustavus Adolphus College.

Students and instructor decide on a topic of interest for the class. A librarian shows students how to find articles related to that topic. The entire class discusses and determines the criteria for what makes a really good article, based on the articles they found. Students write an annotation of their article based upon the class-generated criteria. Can be staggered throughout the semester, with smaller groups of students. Can also be completed via an electronic discussion board, such as Blackboard.