History 1301 - McIntyre, Jennifer: Pre-Columbian to 1877

Source Lab Activity

Remember:  Evaluation is a process.  No single question is enough to determine a source's usefulness.  You need to take them all into consideration.

Student Learning Activity: Evaluate a variety of sources for the ethical and logical uses of evidence.

Directions for activity:  

1. Around the room you will find multiple source documents or what we will call 'artifacts'.  
2. You will be divided into groups and provided with a worksheet.  
3. As a group you will move from one artifact to another and evaluate each artifact using the 'Five W's' Method, write notes about each artifact on your worksheet.  
4. One member of the group may need to use the computer to check links and to research an author's credentials.
5. After evaluating each artifact, as a group, decide whether you would feel confident in using the source for an academic research paper? Explain why or why not?
6. Each group will report back to the class their opinions on each artifact and whether they would feel confident using it as a source for an academic research paper. 
7. Then, each group, will discuss which one artifact would be the "best choice" as a source for using in an academic research paper. 
8. Share with class, through voting, which artifact was the best source material. 

Wrap Up:  Based on today's activity, individually, write a paragraph explaining to another student some of the elements to consider when evaluating a source for their research needs.

SCHOLARLY ARTICLE AUTOPSY ACTIVITY:

Purpose:  Students will understand that authority is constructed and contextual.

Student Learning Activity: Evaluate a variety of sources for the ethical and logical uses of evidence.

Skills:  The purpose of this activity is to help you practice the following skills essential to your success in school and beyond. 

In this activity you will:

S. 1.  Define types of authority such as subject expertise, social position, or special experience; 

S. 2.  Understand that many disciplines have acknowledged authorities and some scholars may challenge these authorities; 

S. 3.  Recognize that authoritative content may be packaged formally or informally and may include sources of all media types.

Knowledge:  This activity will also help you become familiar with the following important content knowledge:

K.1.  Motivation to find authoritative sources, recognizing that authority may be conferred or manifested in unexpected ways;

K.2.  Develop awareness of the importance of assessing content with a skeptical stance.

The Scholarly Article Autopsy

This lesson is intended as a single session within a major’s research methods course. Rather than using a shorter “scholarly vs. non-scholarly” comparison worksheet, this activity asks students to work in groups to systematically examine a scholarly article in depth, identify and evaluate its various components visually and in writing, and then compare it to a non-scholarly article on the same topic. Groups then report back to the entire class. Discussion is guided so as to touch on the processes by which sources are created, what these methods say about their authority, and to consider contextually appropriate uses for them.   

Lesson Outline/Procedure:

Assessment:

• The librarian and the teacher of record will evaluate students’ learning about elements of scholarly articles, the differences between scholarly and non-scholarly sources, and the selection of contextually-appropriate sources based on the verbal reports of their groups as well as the resulting discussion between groups.
• Additional assessment will take place after the session by examining the written and marked-up articles.

Credit:  Krista Bowers Sharpe Western Illinois University Libraries 4/26/2017