Title

Telling the Story: Using Narratives to Explain WHY Information Literacy Education is Important and Get Students Invested in What We Do

Authors

Heather Barrow-Stafford, Knox College

Document Type

Expansion: Utilizing Nontraditional Instruction Methods

Publication Date

2012

Abstract

When your instruction sessions seem to be on autopilot and your students' eyes begin to glaze over, telling a story can be an excellent way to reclaim their attention and capture that sought after, elusive goal: student buy-in.

More often than not, our instruction sessions are focused on a particular project or a discrete set of skills, and we fail to impart to students the BIG PICTURE of what we do. Stories can bridge the gap between the practical skills we teach and our larger goal -helping students become informed information seekers and users- by offering students context.

This session will discuss a presentation made to the incoming freshmen class at Knox College that introduced an online information literacy tutorial. The presentation included five stories (some humorous, others with serious consequences) and served as a contextual foundation for future library instruction sessions to build upon. The assigned online tutorial attempted to focus on the big picture -the BIG WHY- of information literacy in addition to introducing first year students to library resources.

Session participants will leave knowing how to find, select and deliver stories that highlight a standard in information literacy (without mentioning you're teaching them an IL standard!).

Recommended Citation

Barrow-Stafford, Heather, "Telling the Story: Using Narratives to Explain WHY Information Literacy Education is Important and Get Students Invested in What We Do" (2012). LOEX Conference Proceedings 2010. 18.
https://commons.emich.edu/loexconf2010/18