Finding & Working with Sources
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This activity invites students to find a source for one of their classmate's research topics, reinforcing search strategies as well as the idea of research as a collaborative act.
Assessing Sources with Strategic Reading
This in-class exercise helps students to assess and identify different types of sources. It focuses considerable attention on visual signifiers that differentiate different types of sources.
Mining Reading
This activity introduces the concept of mining reading, a way of reading for research that asks students to mine texts for ideas and extensions for a research project.
The Art of the Ethical Interview
This multiple-step activity helps student develop ethical best practices for interviewing that they can use for their own research projects.
Following a Citation Trail
This set of activities encourages students to understand how they can use sources to read their way into an ongoing scholarly or public conversation by working closely with citations, Google Scholar, and library workshop skills.
Degrees of Quotation
In this activity derived from Joseph Bizup's, students review a handout about the different rhetorical impacts of quoting and paraphrasing strategies, and then apply them to their own writing.
Research Refresher: Virtual Scavenger Hunt
Designed for PWR 2 students returning to research for the first time since PWR 1, this activity asks students to hunt for a diversity of sources and align them with the source types defined in Joseph Bizup's "BEAM" framework.
From Google to Academic Search Premiere: Comparing Search Engines and Outcomes
In this activity, students compare search results for topic searches in Google, a database, and Searchworks to better understand the different search mechanisms available to them in their research.
Helping Students Make the Most out of Library Days
These two activities offer students charts to complete and questions to answer as they start to gather sources for their research projects. The activities are designed to be independent of the library workshop and can work well as a follow-up to build and reinforce search skills.
Return to the Library: Research Fieldtrip
Want to engage your students explicitly in library research again after the initial workshop or review earlier in the quarter? Give them time to return for independent research.
Searching for BEAM (Background, Exhibit, Argument, and Method) to Guide Research
This activity, derived from Joseph Bizup, teaches research by helping students understand their sources through a rhetorical framework.
Find additional activities here:
Rhetorical Analysis Choice Board
Mapping Intellectual Trust (designed to be asynchronous)