“Wait, this is information literacy?” a rhetorician at our workshop exclaimed in excited surprise. “But this is so cool!” And we wanted to respond “YES!” not only from joyful pride but also out of recognition. After all, we too had had very similar reactions to our own work with information literacy, and not that long ago. We too had realized that information literacy could be different than we had originally thought (or that the ACRL information literacy standards had led us to believe). Information literacy could be more alive and integrated within the discourse of academic work. It could be more applicable across disciplines and genres and rhetorical goals. And these revelations remapped our practice.
So begins the essay my colleagues Danya Leebaw, Heather Tompkins and I wrote for In the Library with the Lead Pipe that was published last night. It focuses on how our Information Literacy in Student Writing project has helped us learn more about information literacy and how that has influenced our teaching and our work with faculty and departments.