LEARNING OUTCOMES/OBJECTIVES

The intended learning outcomes of this session are that tutors are (1) able to identify trends in their own experiences with and emotional responses to tutoring students on citation, (2) identify factors that make citation difficult for writers, (3) develop an understanding of fundamental citation and style guide knowledge through a presentation and Q&A period, and (4) generate strategies for helping writers with citation in future tutorials.

Citation work is an integral part of both the writing and research aspects of assignments that often requires additional support. For Writing Center Administrators (WCAs), supporting tutor development in this area effectively is best done by engaging in the methods of library and information sciences. Turning to experts in research to explore the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL)’s Framework for Information Literacy can enhance students’ understanding of citation work. This lesson plan is grounded in connecting the Framework with threshold concepts in the field of writing studies. In this lesson, participants primarily engage in frames three and five (“Information Has Value” and “Scholarship as Conversation”). These frames assert that information has value in a variety of contexts and circumstances and that practices in interacting with information are context-dependent, underscoring the value of appropriate documentation skills (ALA 16). Frame Five addresses the rhetorical dimension of constructing knowledge and facilitating conversation in writing through appropriate engagement with information, including documentation (ALA 20). This framework allows facilitators of the session to connect citation practice to the rhetorical threshold concepts likely familiar to writing tutors as articulated by Adler-Kassner and Wardle. Frames Three and Five pair particularly well with Concept 1 (“Writing is a Social and Rhetorical Activity”) and Concept 1.1 (“Writing is a Knowledge-Making Activity”). Tutors who can grasp implicitly or articulate explicitly these threshold concepts, in our experience, often struggle to apply these lenses to the practice of tutoring documentation. Demonstrating the connections between a research framework to these rhetorical principles will enhance tutor confidence to view citation as mutable, negotiable, constructivist praxis that creates meaning rather than a loaded formality in the composition process.

By the end of the session, tutors will be able to:

1. identify trends in their own experiences with and emotional responses to tutoring students on citation
2. identify factors that make citation difficult for writers
3. develop an understanding of fundamental citation and style guide knowledge through a presentation and Q&A period

MATERIALS NEEDED

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN

Introduction 

Welcome and overview the session objectives and agenda. Explain to participants that this will be a shame-free environment to discuss a challenging topic in tutoring and to generate strategies. Explain that participants will be exploring their personal experiences in tutoring citation before learning about different ways of viewing documentation as a practice in both writing center studies and library work. Explain that the session will conclude with exercises that ask participants to generate practical strategies (Slide 2).

Exploring Experiences Activity (Slides 4-6): This activity asks participants to call on their prior experiences and frames the tone of the session. Below are several options for this activity. The facilitators will then bring the group back together and ask a few student groups to share what they discussed. This opening activity pushes tutors to bring into the room their honest experiences and emotional associations with tutoring citation. By creating a more open environment where tutors can be honest about their knowledge levels and approach, facilitators can dispel anxiety or dread around the training. The opening activity should also introduce some of the vocabulary that will appear throughout the session.

Option 1: Small Group Discussion

• With a partner/small group, tutors discuss their experiences in tutoring students on citation, recording trends and themes. Tutors then share with the larger group.
• Discussion Questions: What are your experiences in tutoring students on citations? What are your personal experiences using citations (style most used)? What questions do you have about citations (personal and for tutoring)?

Option 2: Confessions Solo Writing

• With humorous framing, facilitators ask tutors to anonymously write down their “confessions” regarding citation writing, encouraging them to be honest. Confessions are gathered up by a facilitator, where a few are sampled.
• Anticipated confessions: lack of personal knowledge about citation, negative feelings about citation tutorials, engagement in non-ideal tutoring surrounding citation, etc.

Option 3: Large Group Word Association

• Facilitators ask tutors to respond in word-association style to prompts surrounding tutoring citation. The prompt could simply be “Tutoring Citation” or include other terms, such as “plagiarism” “academic integrity,” “style guides,” etc. that will play into the ongoing conversation. 
• Facilitators can gather responses through traditional whiteboards, a Microsoft Whiteboard, Mural, word clouds, or other systems to gather and display associations. 
• Participants turn and talk about what trends they are seeing in the responses. 
  
  

Body of Lesson 

The next section will be a presentation introducing background knowledge on citations and why we use them (Slides 7-8). Participants are asked to explore the varying purposes of documentation in the classroom and in their future fields. There are pragmatic dimensions to documentation in how the audience uses the citations to navigate the writer’s research and there are rhetorical implications in how the writer establishes themselves within the scholarly conversation. In exploring these dimensions of citation, facilitators will contrast the session’s approach to typical threatening approaches to citation (avoiding violating academic integrity or “stealing” ideas; see Bloch, 2008). Facilitators will point to the Association for College & Research Libraries Information Literacy framework to ground this portion of the presentation. 

Next, facilitators will ask participants to brainstorm the challenges they have noticed in their experiences tutoring. The facilitator will then introduce tutors to several concepts that make citation difficult, including information literacy, technology literacy, container collapse, and vague classification of source types, helping them to categorize their brainstormed challenges (Slides 9-10). 

Invisible Systems Bias 

• • Algorithmic bias
• • Bias within the data used to create computer systems and databases.
• • Researcher’s Positionality
• • How researchers were taught to find sources (where one looks and what they look for).
    
    

Information Literacy 

• • The ability to locate, evaluate, use, and acknowledge Information.
    
    

Tech Literacy

• • The ability to use, manage, understand, and assess various technologies (now required for effective research practice).
    
    

Container Collapse 

• • The loss of visual cues and context for source types with a transition to digital databases.
    
    

Vague Classification of Source Types

• • The difficulty in defining how a source should be documented based on its use (i.e., whether a rhetorical analysis of a song should cite the text as a music video or as lyrics).

After exploring these categories, groups of tutors are assigned a challenge category identified previously in the presentation; breaking participants into groups by category allows them to focus on generating strategies specific to each area of concern (Slide 11). In groups, tutors will generate strategies for addressing the challenge. What would help students overcome these hurdles? What is fundamental knowledge for tutors and writers alike? How do we make the experience of citation less challenging? One person in the group writes strategies for collection for creating a shared resource. Alternatively, have group members submit to a discussion board or other group collection system. Groups will then be asked to share about each challenge category either verbally or digitally, creating a corpus of strategies that can be shared after the session.

Conclusion 

The facilitator will summarize what the groups have contributed thus far, demonstrating their application to the challenges participants articulated at the start of the session. The facilitator will ask participants to respond in writing to the following questions for further training recommendations via digital or manual collection strategies (Slide 12). Participants’ responses can be collected as an “Exit Ticket” (their contribution to the conversation prior to leaving the session).

Facilitators should then direct tutors to resources for further learning related to tutoring and documentation practices. Facilitators can provide a modified version of the “Getting Started with Citation” handout as part of these resources. This is a useful opportunity to connect participants to their institution’s library and associated resources. 

ASSESSING FOR UNDERSTANDING

Both the strategies that participants produce in their groups/partners in the “Breaking Down Barriers” activity and the Exit Ticket questions require participants to demonstrate an understanding of the origin of challenging citation tutorials while pulling on prior knowledge and experience to generate solutions.  The Exit Ticket requires them to apply these strategies in theory and pushes them to articulate needs for further development. If participants can successfully complete these activities, they will demonstrate knowledge about the function of documentation, regardless of style guide particulars, and begin working through solutions to larger problems that manifest in tutorials.

EXTENSIONS AND ADAPTATIONS

Suggestions for extending or condensing the training

Alternate activities 

RESOURCES

"Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education", American Library Association, February 9, 2015. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework (Accessed January 2, 2024) Document ID: b910a6c4-6c8a-0d44-7dbc-a5dcbd509e3f

Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL)’s Framework for Information Literacy – This resource outlines the six frames (Authority is Constructed and Contextual, Information Creation as a Process, Information Has Value, Research as Inquiry, Scholarship as Conversation, and Searching as Strategic Exploration) and gives bulleted knowledge practices and dispositions. There are three appendices include as follows: Appendix 1, implementing the framework (suggestions on how to use the framework for information literacy for higher education, introduction for faculty and administrators, how to use the framework for faculty, how to support the framework for administrators); Appendix 2, background of the framework development, and Appendix 3, sources for further reading.

Armstrong, A. (2024, June 20). LibGuides: Information Literacy in the Disciplines: Rhetoric & Composition Studies. Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL). https://acrl.libguides.com/c.php?g=1190641&p=8708446

Adhikari, S. (2018). Beyond culture: Helping international students avoid plagiarism. Journal of International Students, 8(1), 375-388. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1134315 

Adler-Kassner, l., & Waddle, E. (2015). Naming what we know: Threshold concepts of writing studies. University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790726.2017.1324881 

Bloch, J. (2008). Plagiarism across cultures: Is there a difference? In C. Eisner & M. Vicinus (Eds.), Originality, imitation, and plagiarism: Teaching writing in the digital age (pp. 219-230). University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv65sxk1.22

Connaway, L. S. (2018, June 20). What is “container collapse” and why should librarians and teachers care? Next, OCLC. https://blog.oclc.org/next/what-is-container-collapse-and-why-should-librarians-and-teachers-care/

International Society for Technology in Education (2024). ISTE Standards For Students. https://iste.org/standards/students 

Shin, D., Shin, E. Y., Ahmad, N., & Chauhan, P. (2023). Data's impact on algorithmic bias. Computer, 56(6), 90-94. https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2023.3262909

REFERENCES

Adler-Kassner, l., & Waddle, E. (2015). Naming what we know: Threshold concepts of writing studies. University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790726.2017.1324881 

Bloch, J. (2008). Plagiarism across cultures: Is there a difference? In C. Eisner & M. Vicinus (Eds.), Originality, imitation, and plagiarism: Teaching writing in the digital age (pp. 219-230). University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv65sxk1.22

American Library Association. (2015, February 9). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL). https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework