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“To become lifelong learners, we need to know not just how to learn, but how to teach ourselves. We must acquire the skills necessary to be independent, self-directed learners.”
(Wesleyan adapted from "ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education")
Students today have “unprecedented access to tools and resources for learning” making academic-level research increasingly difficult for high school students. (Common Sense Media, 2015) The Information Literacy Library Program (ILLP) teaches students over the course of their four years at Saint Joseph Notre Dame High School how to access high-quality information from diverse perspectives and multiple formats, make sense of information to draw their own conclusions and/or create new knowledge, and ethically share their knowledge with others. The ILLP teaches students how to locate, access, evaluate, use, and properly cite information sources - skills necessary to become discerning, self-directed lifelong learners.
Scope and Sequence
As of AY 2017-2018, students are required to use Miller Library resources for their research assignments, including the library’s print books and eBooks, the library website for open-access online resources, and the library’s 16 research databases for peer-reviewed journal articles and more. At the beginning of their freshman school year, students have a Freshman Success Skills session with the Librarian. In this session, students learn about the Library's physical and virtual environments and how to locate resources through the Library's catalog by completing a scavenger hunt. In their sophomore year, students will learn how to locate, access, evaluate, cite, and use library resources within the context of the Cultural Identity & Perspectives course curriculum. Ad hoc information literacy sessions take place in the following junior and senior courses and are tailored to specific research assignments to help reinforce information literacy concepts: Lit as Social Commentary, Government, AP US History, US History, AP Psychology, Psychology, and Faith in Action. Juniors will also learn visual literacy concepts in U.S. History.
Grade 9
Students will be introduced to the physical and virtual library environments during Freshmen Success Skills.
Grade 10
Q1: Identify, locate, and access information. Students will complete the first stage of the research process: Define the information problem, identify information needed, assess current search strategies, identify new search strategies, find and present information.
Q2: Introduction to academic databases. Students will learn how to navigate and query the academic databases.
Q3: Evaluate sources of information. Students will learn how to evaluate web, print, media sources for currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, purpose, and more.
Q4: Cite sources of information. Students will understand the importance of citing sources, understand when it is appropriate to cite sources, learn how to choose relevant quotations, introduce and paraphrase quotations or ideas that are not their own, and identify parts of a citation as listed in a Works Cited page or bibliography.
The SJND Miller Library's mission is to provide you with diverse resources to meet your information needs and curiosities; empower you to take initiative in furthering the depth and breadth of your education; teach you how to locate, access, evaluate, use, and properly cite information sources; and help you become a compassionate, discerning, and self-directed lifelong learner.
