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The Flint Water Crisis: Searching for Social Justice in a First Year Composition Course

NELIG Instruction Swap Dec. 9, 2016 presentation by Cathy Fahey

Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan:  ENL 110 Information Literacy Class on Flint, MI Water Crisis (Time: 75 minutes)

 

Objectives: 

  • Students will become familiar with the Flint, Michigan Water Crisis (Framework: Research as Inquiry) 
  • Students will read news articles to identify potential library database search terms. (Framework: Scholarship as Conversation)
  • Students will search in library databases to find articles related to the Flint, MI Water Crisis (Framework: Searching as Strategic Exploration)

 

Welcome/Introduction/Handouts/Computer Setup

Class Question: Who knows what’s happening now in Flint, Michigan?

 Activity: Read the News

  • Have students go to LibGuide
  • Count off 1-4
  • Students read assigned article and write down 8-10 key words, ideas, names, phrases, places found in article
  • Students enter terms into Google form on LibGuide


Class question: What did you find out about what’s happening in Flint?

 

Point out that from reading many different articles, each person in the class learned something different about Flint.

Explain frequency analysis

Use wordclouds.com to create word cloud of class search terms

Have students identify top 5/largest words in wordcloud

 

Class question: What would you like to know more about regarding Flint?

 

Activity: Library Search

  • What are library databases?
  • Have students open Academic Search Premier
  • Search for chosen terms from wordcloud.
  • Students have 5-10 minutes to choose and read an article

 

Class Question: What did you learn from the database search that enhanced your knowledge about Flint?

Class Question: How does the information you got from the library database differ from the information you got from the news article? 

Class Question: Based on the library article you read, what would you search for next? What else do you now want to know more about? 

Class Question: How can you use what we’ve covered in class (reading news articles, identifying search terms, finding information in library resources) in other areas of your life?