First-Year Seminar: Question Authority! (Information Literacy Meets Media Literacy) Course Proposal

First-Year Seminar: Question Authority! (Information Literacy Meets Media Literacy)

Instructor: Shana Higgins, Instructional Services Librarian, Armacost Library, University of Redlands

Course to be offered: Fall term, as needed

Maximum Enrollment: 15

Course Description:

Through this course we will learn to become more thoughtful, critical consumers of media. We will engage various media (television, magazines, newspapers, scholarly publications, the Internet, radio, video games, and film) asking questions about the information, values, and messages conveyed. This will be an occasion to question the authority of the messages communicated, the producers of media, as well as our own perceptions. We will explore how media shape views of culture, politics, and societies. This course will serve also as an introduction to college-level research skills.

Course Objectives:

The First-Year Seminar is foremost a course to introduce incoming freshman to college-level academic work. With this in mind, the course will use various media to engage students in critical thinking processes.

Faculty Implications

The course will be taught as overload and will have limited impact on my work in the Library and on my colleagues.

Course Materials

No need for additional Library purchases.

Equipment

No additional equipment needed.

Special Requests

N/A

Readings

Various readings charting the intersection of race and ethnicity, class, and gender with media.

Various readings on rhetoric, semiotics, and new media.

Projects

Individual Blog (weekly responses to course material and peers)

Wikipedia Article (collaborative, group project)

Letter to the Editor

Deconstructing a Scholarly Article

Cultural Event Paper