Gabrielle Kelenyi

Q: What motivated you to apply for an information literacy grant for English 240 Introduction to Writing & Rhetoric?

I applied for the information literacy grant for English 240 because I was inspired by a brown bag presentation by Dana Cuomo (grant recipient in 2023) and students from her Feminist Research Design class. I was intrigued by the opportunity to work with a librarian to improve the critical information literacy aims of my course, especially around positioning students as critical consumers and producers of information.

The information literacy grant helped me revise the course projects to better help students contextualize the research they performed and seek out and use sources of information appropriate to a specific audience. I hoped to help students use their research to draw new and nuanced conclusions in response to their research questions and produce information through their creative projects for new audiences.

Q: You asked students to closely engage with a wide range of sources, including social media posts, literacy narratives, blog posts, peer-reviewed publications, images, and organizer toolkits. Why did you place such an emphasis on the variety of sources?

I placed an emphasis on the variety of sources students engaged with because I wanted to encourage students to think more intentionally about producing and presenting information that is useful for and legible to audiences beyond academia. Additionally, a commitment of Writing Studies is to critically examine how source access, selection, and organization can impact who has what information. English 240 is an introduction to Writing Studies, so it made sense for this to be a regular topic of discussion and an important consideration in students’ independent research.

Q: The final project for this class was a collaboratively developed public-facing syllabus for a writing studies course. How did you envision this project? Who was the intended audience? How did the project go?

I envisioned working together as a class to transform students’ individual critical annotated bibliographies into a collective public-facing syllabus for a generalist audience. Public-facing syllabi are a form of political education that seek to engage communities outside of academia. I hoped our class syllabus would highlight important contributions to the Writing Studies field that move beyond peer-reviewed articles, monographs, or edited collections. Instead, we tried to prioritize freely available materials in a variety of formats in alignment with a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. As a result, the syllabus would be intentionally accessible and appropriate for use by a diverse audience and provide a comprehensive introduction to a theme (or themes) in the field of Writing Studies.

Students chose to develop a syllabus for future iterations of English 240 since they could clearly envision other Lafayette students as an audience. They decided on four units: Writing & Rhetoric as a Process; Writing & Rhetoric as Inclusion; Writing & Rhetoric as a Tool; and Writing & Rhetoric as Storytelling. Then, they self-selected into groups to gather, organize, and annotate materials for each unit. The project went well: it is the beginning of a continuously evolving course that is designed for and by students themselves. Students chose texts, developed assignments, and intentionally organized all of their materials on this WordPress site hosted by Lafayette (Please note that this site may look different each time you visit! Students work to update it each semester English 240 is offered).

Q: You worked closely with Ben Jahre on your class. What are the advantages of collaborating with a librarian? What role(s) could librarians play in the information literacy partnership with faculty?

I’m not sure I can articulate all of the incredible advantages of collaborating with a librarian, let alone Ben Jahre specifically! There are innumerable advantages. A few important ones that come to mind are that Ben served as a thought partner as I revised the assignments and developed the public-facing syllabus assignment for English 240. Additionally, Ben was able to attend class sessions while students conducted their research as well as lead sessions on open access, developing research questions, creative commons, and library resources. Students in the class met with Ben individually to discuss their critical annotated bibliographies, and he was instrumental in helping students understand the stakes for using freely available sources for the final project. Unsurprisingly, working with Ben was positively mentioned in the course evaluations. Students came away from the course with a deeper understanding of all the resources available to them through the Library as well as how librarians themselves can help them deepen their learning and submit assignments they’re proud of and excited about.

Thus, I think librarians can help faculty think about their courses through a critical information literacy lens—their learning objectives, their assignments, and their in-class activities. English 240 felt like a whole new course after working with Ben, one that better incorporated the critical commitments of my field, one that felt more authentic to me as an educator, and one where students have ownership over their learning. I look forward to continuing to collaborate with librarians in all of my courses to enhance my teaching, the courses themselves, and my students’ learning experiences.

Q: Would you continue to incorporate information literacy into future versions of this course or other courses?

I am continuing to incorporate information literacy into future versions of this course and other courses. Creating a full public-facing syllabus turned out to be too much for one class of students to fully flesh out in just the final few weeks of class (I probably should have guessed that!), so future sections of English 240 are continuing to update and enhance the public-facing syllabus. Additionally, in a new class I am developing for Spring 2025, English 202: Linguistic Justice, I am working with Ben again to help students conduct research and further develop critical information literacy skills. Ben has already given me feedback on the research project assignment and presentations, and he will facilitate a session on critical information literacy for the class. For a new class on such an important topic, I am grateful to have experience and support in thinking about teaching and learning with critical information literacy in mind.

Q: Do you have any advice for faculty who are interested in integrating information literacy into their classes?

I think my first piece of advice would be to work with librarians to help you get started! Faculty might also think carefully about critical information literacy’s place in their field and how to communicate that to students via texts, assignments, and in-class activities. Finally, there’s no reason to reinvent the wheel: ask colleagues at Lafayette and other institutions how they are integrating information literacy into their classes. Then, you can adapt those ideas to make them your own.