Week 3: Critical Reading Response: Cultivating Source Literacy Discussion

450 WORDS

1. Chapter 18 “Finding Evidence” pp. 438-453 
2. Chapter 19 “Evaluating Sources” pp. 454-463

Description

We’ve spent the last two weeks cultivating our understanding of academic argument and we’ve practiced identifying the features of such texts but this week we dive deeper into what source literacy looks like, in and outside of academia. Every day, you are inundated with thousands of arguments from various sources. The first argument you may encounter starts with the morning news you overhear while making breakfast, next the sensational headlines of your social media feed, later a new employee policy email that was sent to you at work, and even the political bumper sticker you read on the car in front of you while you wait to turn left at a red light! But what makes information good and trustworthy? Our textbook walks us through key criteria we must consider when determining if a source is sound or “fake news.” Whether you are getting your information from a primary source document, your local newspaper, via a quick google search, or on twitter among thousands of other ways, sound argument research is predicated upon CRAAP or Current, Reliable,  Authoritative, Accurate, and Purposeful material. As you craft your CRR this week, consider how you interface with information literacy and what criteria you use in evaluating your sources. In what ways is this issue of more importance today with the endless information of the digital age than before?

Instructions

After Reading the assigned texts, your response should be approached in one of the following ways:

1. Reading with/Reading Against: Read with each text, summarizing the key ideas. Then, “talk back” to the ideas, locating potential gaps or how these ideas might be reconsidered or implemented in various settings.
2. Impact on your own writing: Think of what impact the ideas or concepts in a particular article/chapter/ES.S.ay may have on the teaching of writing or on writing more generally–in and out of your discipline. Explain as clearly as possible how this impact might occur. You might also talk about the problems and/or possibilities this concept or idea creates for the teacher/student/practitioner. You should reflect, at least a little, on how your own experience(s) in classrooms and courses rub against the concept(s) or idea(s) to which you are responding.
3. Synthesis: Looking at the texts you read for the week, attempt to synthesize a concept or idea that you noticed moving through the texts. Your goal should be to highlight the idea or concept as the writers understand it and then explain how you see these concepts connecting or disconnecting in a productive way. You might also use these syntheses in future projects.

You may want to include key definitions and terms to help you on future projects. Every discussion post must include a question you want the class to address that goes beyond reading comprehension (i.e. we want conversations started not merely yes/no or shallow questions). The expectation is that you engage deeply with the assigned readings and draw explicit connections between your CRR and the readings.

Guidelines

• Type or paste your reading response directly into the submission text area
• You do not need to include an MLA Works Cited entry, but do follow MLA format to cite any sentences with direct examples or quotations you reference from the reading.
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Post Requirements

• Original Title of Discussion post, “Walker WK1 DQ Answer” is not original. Try and think outside of the box and pull something unique and individual from our weekly assigned readings
• Initial Response must be 500 words in length