Applying the ACRL Framework in music classroom and studio settings
Like all instruction librarians, I tailor my sessions to the needs of the professors, while still maintaining an eye toward the ACRL’s competency standards for information literacy.
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As most librarians know, the ACRL recently developed something new--instead of a set of standards, we’ve got the Framework for Information Literacy, with six “threshold concepts” within the realm of info literacy. What I want to do today is discuss some ideas for projects, assignments, and teaching sessions I aim to tackle when applying the new framework in the hopes that some of you might get some ideas too, and perhaps share your ideas with me in the Q&A. I’ll discuss an overhaul to a big annotated bibliography project students were doing, give examples of activities for topics classes, and examples of projects that might work well for studio settings.
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I suspect that many of you have heard a dozen or more presentations about the new Framework, but just in case some of you have lucked out, here’s a refresher on what those 6 concepts are. In the interest of saving time, I won’t describe them much, but I have a longer version of this program I can send you if you are interested in seeing those descriptions.
•The Framework consists of six interconnected threshold concepts within the realm information literacy
•Each concept is iterative; students will need a lot of practice before meeting each threshold
•These concepts replace the traditional set of standards and outcomes; librarians felt as though we were teaching our students a skill set
Now, a quick run-through of the 6 concepts. For those of you who will want more detailed descriptions of this concept, Laura Snyder at Mount Allison University is definitely an expert when it comes to the Framework in music settings, if you have questions about those. Her MLA Denver presentation is available at the MLA website--it’s really good.
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1. Authority is constructed and contextual
2. Information Creation as a Process
3. Research as Inquiry
4. Information has Value
5. Searching as strategic exploration
6. Scholarship as Conversation.
While thinking of this aspect of Scholarship as Conversation, I was reminded of my freshman year as a cello performance major, and showing up to a lesson to play my most romantic, rubato, passion-filled Bach prelude--suite 1. My professor knew I’d only listened to the Pablo Casals version, and I soon learned that the Casals rendition reflected only one period in time when this was how many chose to play Bach. I didn’t know about the whole conversation, the return to a more baroque aesthetic. If I’d had a music librarian as an undergrad, she might’ve helped me gather some sources on performance practice and pointed out other recordings I could listen to in order to prepare *my* performance conversation entry.
Again, please see Laura Snyder’s presentation on these if you want to learn more.
Example 1: Revamping the Annotated Bib Project
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Each year, there are three sections of music history survey, taken by sophomores. The professor has me come to his class for 3 or 4 sessions designed to help them complete a major project due at the end of the semester. That project is an annotated bibliography on a topic of their choice. The topic must consist of “Recent Research on BLANK.” So: recent research on Mozart’s Requiem, recent research on the castrato, etc.
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They must create a list of 10 sources and the professor predetermines those formats: 1 Grove article, 2-3 books, 2-3 journal articles, 1 score, 1 recording, and 1 dissertation. If a student needs a 10th item, it’s called the “wild card,” and that student is encouraged to locate a digital archive online, or another unique source of value.
He has a blanket rule that for books and articles, they must not be older than 15 years (so published by 2000 or later). Their annotations must consist of summary plus evaluation.
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The way I divide this material over three sessions changes from semester to semester. In each session, the student leaves with a written homework assignment that they’re required to turn in to me, and I grade them. Of course, these homework assignments force them to find the materials they need--the books, the articles, etc.
With this project, the sessions I teach, and their homework assignments designed to get them there, they are learning many information literacy skills. If we consider the new info literacy framework, we can see that students are getting experience with 5 of 6 of those concepts:
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1. Scholarship is a conversation.
In their annotations, they’re supposed to indicate if the author has taken a stance that is different from another. The professor refers to these as “issues to consider.”
2. Information creation is a process
They’re required to find ten predetermined formats, and the professor hopes that students learn about what sorts of information you find in different formats.
3. Research as inquiry
The professor will sometimes allow students to tweak their topics if they’re running into issues: such as “there’s too much information available, so we need to narrow the focus,” or the opposite, “I can’t find enough sources, I need to broaden my topic somehow.” This mostly deals with the “determine the scope” area of research as inquiry.
4. Searching is strategic
This is straightforward: they must find sources, and they do so by learning to use the online catalog, databases, indexes, and other tools.
5. Authority is constructed
We spend time discussing the various score editions available, and what those editions entail when it comes to editorial process. We spend time discussing the criteria one can take into account when selecting a sound recording.
So, when I look at the framework thresholds, I can’t help but see some obvious areas for improvement--improving the material covered in sessions, the material included in their assignments, but most of all: improvements in the overall structure of the project, which will need to get professor buy-in
The following are the enhancements and tweaks I endeavor to make for this fall’s music history sessions:
Scholarship as Conversation
The way the project is currently structured, students panic because they’re supposed to discuss what the “issues” are in their annotations, but they’re explicitly forbidden from citing scholarship published before 2000. We know that some musicological topics go in and out of fashion, so what if there are some critical disagreements that came before 2000? The message “only use the recent stuff; the topic is Recent Research” is a message that conflicts with the sentiment “delve in deep and see where the issues are.”
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One tweak I plan to propose is: instead of making the students find 2-3 journal articles published recently, we might challenge students to seek out 2 journal articles on their topic and focus initially on where the differences might be. Instead of the approach of “I need two journal articles on my topic, check and check,” it’s “I need to find 2 articles and engage with them enough to understand their significance to the field.” It’s time well spent, because that’s what the professor wanted to witness in their annotations all along. It’s still a challenge for students, but it might work better if the message is more explicit: find the disagreement or difference in approach within a body of scholarship.
Information as a process
Another tweak I’ll propose is the formats requirement: they’re told “You must use a Grove article, you must use a dissertation, you must use 2 books, etc.” But again, that encourages a checklist mindset. Though I structure sessions to address these formats by noting their place in the world of research-- “Start with Grove to gain an overview,” “Journal articles are very narrow in focus!” we’re not having the students engage with the concept of process and how it is meaningful to product selection. I think I can counter the checklist approach by crafting an in-class activity at the end of the second session, when they’ve received introductions to Grove, books, articles, dissertations, scores and recording, and how to find them.
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In their activity, students sit in pairs. We take turns going around the room: I give each pair a musical query, and they have to tell me what format they’d first turn to in order to answer the question. For example: I might ask a pair “Where was Handel living in his 20s?” The pair will likely suggest a biography--a book. Then they must explain why a book, as opposed to the other formas we’ve discussed. I actually did this activity just last week, and it went really well. For another pair, I said “You want to find an analysis of a particular Bach fugue. Where will you turn?” They suggested: hopefully a journal article, but maybe a dissertation. For the next pair, I say: Well, no such analysis exists! You have to do this analysis on your own. What do you need to turn to? This stumped 2 out of the 3 sections I had that day. The answer, of course, was the score. When going around the room for the class, I can lead their responses into discussions and reminders about how the process of these formats can imply their use.
Next came part 2 of the activity: I’d given each pair a strip of paper. They had 3 minutes to come up with a musical query--such as the ones I just asked. Then they had to swap queries with a pair across the aisle. Once everyone received their queries, there were again to state which format would most likely have the answer, and to make this fun, each pair had to create an imaginary title for this item. One pair made up this query: How many lovers did Liszt have? The pair they switched with proposed finding the answer in a book entitled Liszt’s List: Liszt’s Paramours. I said: you know, he’s gotta have a LOT of lovers to fill an entire book. The students responded: the book is giving the background information on the lovers as well. The entire gossipy backstory. Fine. for the query “Find analysis of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder,” the format chosen was a journal article entitled “I see dead kids: Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder.” We went around the room discussing each answer. This activity took about 20 minutes. It would have been the “free” time they’d spend searching for journal articles on their own, and instead, I decided they’d do that outside of class, using their assignment, which contains search tips on it.
Authority is Constructed
In our class sessions, students quickly understand why various score editions exist, and they understand the notion that you have many sound recordings to choose from, and the criteria for selection varies from person to person. They tend to do less well on the portion of the assignment that asks them to cite a sound recording review--from wherever they like, in whatever format-- the review is supposed to help them formulate what they’ll write in the annotation for their sound recording. They’re not building in time to ponder between options. Again, with a checklist mentality, they wanna grab a recording and go.
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I think what I’ll do is have them find 2 recordings, instead of one. They must indicate which one they’ll ultimately choose for their bibliography, and they must state why. The “why” part must include a reference to what the student hears--not just reads in the review or jacket notes. The “why” does double duty: that’s the argument they’ll want to put in their annotation for their final bibliography.
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Finally: from both a Framework perspective and an Assessment perspective, I plan to eventually have the students maintain research diaries in google docs. Asking students to reflect on their journeys, the problems they encounter, the decisions they make, and why...it’s good for me, because I can intervene without waiting for them to approach me, and I can better gauge if my teaching and assignments are effective. Many librarians ask their students to do this. But also, in thinking about Scholarship as a Conversation, and wanting our students to gain experience at entering a conversation: a research diary isn’t really entering a conversation, but it lets them practice the reflection and engagement necessary in order to enter a conversation. The writing practice helps in this endeavor, too. I continue to mull this over, because they don’t have a lot of time for this. I might land on asking each of them for one journal for one of their 3 assignments.
For those who don’t have many chances to visit a classroom, maybe your professors would be willing to tweak some assignments and projects after having a conversation about the new framework.
-for classes that have a research paper or other research assignment, it might be interesting to require students to submit an explanation of the sources that just didn’t make the cut. This shouldn’t necessarily occur early on. If the professor scaffolds the paper, and requires a bibliography early on, and then a draft a few weeks later, it’s probably going to be the case that some of what was on the bibliography disappears, or gets swapped out. I
-For classes that work with scores, a similar requirement could be interesting. I envision having students compile a list of available scores--at least two--then provide an explanation as to why they chose one but discarded the other. But when it comes to the discarded score, ask the student to conceive of another scenario in which that score might’ve been a good choice.
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Example 2: Discursive Footnotes & Citations
Now, I’d like to move on to an example of an in-class activity focusing on the concepts of Information Has Value, Scholarship as Conversation, and Authority is Constructed and Contextual.
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The setting is for the senior seminar course, for students completing a BMA. These students write a 30-page paper on a topic of their choice, and the standards are supposed to be pretty high--not quite a thesis, but close.
Both professors who alternate leading this course want their students’ papers to feature discursive footnotes. In fact, it’s my understanding that professors will often distribute journal articles with very long blocks of footnotes, so students can get used to them, maybe even figure out how to mimic them. I believe that the act of intentionally writing discursive--or long-winded--footnotes requires a fairly high confidence level within 3 of the framework concepts:
Information has Value--they’re citing the authors and editors, giving attribution, leading readers to track down original sources for themselves, if they like
Authority is Constructed: for a footnote along the lines of “for more on this topic,” or “for more about this argument,” or “Not everyone agrees; see so-and-so’s article,” they are becoming familiar with the levels of authority in their research, and drawing attention to those authorities.
Scholarship as Conversation: Many footnotes wind up identifying what the scholarly conversation is. Sure, much of this happens in the paper, but it’s often the case that the students can’t take up a bunch of space in a paper to give a summary or background information about a major concept or event. When students are encouraged to sprinkle their papers with these footnotes, they’re entering a scholarly conversation in a way that is as casual and low-pressure as it is advanced--low pressure because the footnote is so small (really, it’s just smaller print at the bottom of the page, no biggie, right?) but in order to write them, they’ve gotta be comfortable expressing *themselves* as authorities of authorities.
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The activity is a big modification of one I’ve done for a junior-level topics course:
For this to work, the classroom needs to have a projector screen, and each student needs a computer, if you can’t find a computer lab.
Students work individually or in pairs--it depends on the size of the class.
Each student or pair receives two handouts--one is the first introductory paragraph of the Grove entry for Nicolas Slonimsky. The second is Slonimsky’sself entry from Baker’s (8th ed, I believe). Students read both handouts--this should take about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, using the computer and projector screen, I navigate to a Google document that I already set up ahead of class. The top of the document contains the Grove entry, and I’ve already made sure that each student in class has permission to edit the document. The link to the document is provided to the students on the board, and via a link they have access to.
Then comes the fun part. Each student adds a footnote to the Grove entry using the handouts from the Baker’s entry. The style of footnote is going to be one of clarification, or to provide a different viewpoint, perhaps to find more information. Each footnote must include the properly formatted citation for their supplementary source. They all add these footnotes directly into the Google doc, which updates in real time. Here’s what this winds up looking like:
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and it’s sort of hard to see, so here’s just the footnotes: