SLO 1, ARTIFACT 1:
ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education From the Association of College and Resource Libraries (ACRL) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Link to full document: http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework The ACRL Framework provides a useful summary of the principles and learning experiences that support the development of information literacy. The six ideas at the center of the Framework (“Authority is Constructed and Contextual,” “Information Creation as a Process,” “Information Has Value,” “Research As Inquiry,” “Scholarship as Conversation,” and “Searching as Strategic Exploration”) reflect my own values about research, inquiry, and scholarship. I see the Framework as a guide not only for teaching information literacy to others but one for helping me continuously improve my own skills in this area. When reading the document for the first time, I learned that the Framework was preceded by the more prescriptive Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, which were rescinded in 2016. In my information literacy class, Dr. Velez noted that many librarians were not in favor of rescinding the Standards and continue to find them useful. After reviewing the Standards myself, I was able to see how the Standards and the Framework might be taught alongside each other in some cases, particularly when students are preparing scholarship for a public forum still operating in accordance with older rules. Still, I believe the Framework is more timely than the Standards, parts of which may become obsolete as technological developments continue to change how people obtain, cite, use, and interpret information. I studied these standards during the same semester that I learned about three writing projects that included or featured the work of incarcerated women: a prison newspaper, an advocacy newsletter, and a creative writing journal. In these publications, women who are often shut out of public discourse use their literacy skills to evaluate their environments, communicate their life experiences, and assert authority over their own narratives. Their work is a powerful illustration of how valuable the “Authority is Constructed and Contextual,” “Information Creation as a Process,” and “Information Has Value” frames can be for marginalized learners. These ACRL principles will be foundational in my effort to support information literacy skills development in marginalized communities. |