This edited volume offers a resource for instructors who are interested in developing innovative and effective teaching practices at the intersection of critical media and information literacy and civic engagement.
Responding to increasingly complex media environments and myriad crises in our democratic systems, this book foregrounds the importance of teaching students media and information literacy skills to prepare them for a life of active citizenship. Using a series of case studies, this book shows how media and information literacy can be interwoven with course design, instruction, and assessment, all in service of civic learning. The contributions provide models that are useful for faculty and teaching staff across a wide range of disciplines and fields of study, including models for interdisciplinary and co-curricular projects. Readers can draw from these models in part or in whole to advance their own pedagogical goals and, at the same time, draw on the broader lessons of engaged pedagogy offered by the editors and featured contributors. They can engage and re-engage the text, focusing their attention on models that help address their specific needs when building these skills into their teaching practices.
This volume is ideal for college and university educators who are looking to integrate civic and information literacies into their undergraduate teaching, as well as graduate students preparing for careers that include post-secondary teaching.
This edited volume offers a resource for instructors who are interested in developing innovative and effective teaching practices at the intersection of critical media and information literacy and civic engagement.
List of Contributors
Foreword
Patrick D. Nugent
Introduction: Citizenship, Media and Information Literacy, and the College
Laboratory
Meghan Grosse and Sara Clarke-De Reza
Part 1: Searching with Intention
1. A Very Modern Turing Test: AI in the Classroom
Cori Lynn Arnold
2. Challenging Authority: Investigating the Origins of Online Content
Kelly Banyas and Andrea Boothby Rice
3. Beyond the Profit Motive: Encouraging a Civic Mindset in Corporate Social
Responsibility
Caddie Putnam Rankin
4. Designing Districts: A Computer Programming Assignment Exploring
Gerrymandering
Shaun David Ramsey
5. Crime Data in the Social World
Rachel Durso
6. Expanding Search to Produce Accessible Public Syllabi
Meghan Grosse
Part 2: Integrating Varied Perspectives
7. Understanding Scientific Knowledge Processes through Forensics
Suzanne Thuecks
8. Business Information Communicated Through Stories
Lynne Meis
9. Exploring Authority in Educational Research: Podcasts and Audience
Experience
Sara Clarke-De Reza
10. Critical Organizational Literacy: Teaching Work Identity as Civic
Practice
Michael Harvey
11. Designing Advocacy: Teaching Human Rights and Social Justice
Christine J. Wade
12. Plants and Poetry: Collaboratively Creating a Chaucer Garden
Courtney E. Rydel, Sparrow Hall, Melinda Kern, and Logan Monteleone
Part 3: Investigating Complex Issues
13. Reading 21st Century Literacy Effectively and Responsibly
Erin M. Counihan and Raven Bishop
14. Literacy in Stasis: Renewing Rhetorical Engagement
Sean Ross Meehan
15. Mathematics of Voting, Sharing, and Fairness
Gabe Feinberg
16. Conducting Campus Research in a Social Science Methods Course
Meghan Grosse and Sara Clarke-De Reza
17. The Role of Information Literacy in Community-Based Environmental
Internships
Beth Choate, Laura Chamberlin, and Valerie Imbruce
18. Community Stakeholder Engagement: Collaborative Research as Civic
Practice
Sara Clarke-De Reza, Caddie Putnam Rankin, and Patrick D. Nugent
Part 4: Communicating for Civic Impact
19. Building Visual and Data Literacy Through the Critique and Creation of
Infographics
Erin K. Anderson, Raven Bishop, and Nancy Cross
20. Simulating Political Campaigns in a Polarized World
Flavio Rogerio Hickel Jr.
21. Zines as Critical Response to the Carceral State: A Scaffolded
Pedagogical Approach to Critical Information Literacy and Visual
Communication
Emily Steinmetz and Raven
22. Fostering Community Engagement through Place-Based Digital Storytelling
Stephanie Brown
23. Engaging Community Members in Environmental Communication
Jillian Bible
Afterword
Kiho Kim
Index
Meghan Grosse is an Associate Professor and Chair of Communication and Media Studies at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. She teaches courses in theory and research methods of communication, media and politics, and political economy of communication. Her research focuses on the history of internet governance policy, independent and alternative media, critical information literacy, and digital pedagogy.
Sara Clarke-De Reza is an Associate Professor and Chair in the Education Department at Washington College. She teaches courses in the historical and cultural foundations of American education, educational psychology, and educational research and design. Her research explores teaching, learning, and collaborative design at the intersection of formal and informal learning environments, like schools and museums.
