Addressing Post-Truth in Community College, A Very Partial Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Addressing Post-Truth in Community College

TYCA-SW Conference, Loveland CO

Lane Fletcher, PhD (lane.fletcher@hccs.edu)

Bruce J. Martin (bruce.j.martin@lonestar.edu)

Summary

This panel encourages discussion of ways we can counter this “post-truth” culture and responsibly teach ethical argumentation, learning to trust each other, the message, the discourse, and our commitment to a civil society by demanding evidence for assertions, developing appropriate proofs, acknowledging others’ arguments and evidence, and submitting ourselves to their judgment.

Bibliography

Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). (2015). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework.

“Teaching faculty have a greater responsibility in designing curricula and assignments that foster enhanced engagement with the core ideas about information and scholarship within their disciplines. Librarians have a greater responsibility in identifying core ideas within their own knowledge domain that can extend learning for students, in creating a new cohesive curriculum for information literacy, and in collaborating more extensively with faculty.” (ACRL 2015)

Beilin, I. (2015). Beyond the threshold: Conformity, resistance, and the ACRL Information Literacy Framework for HIgher Education. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. Retrieved from http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org

An overview of the information thresholds of the ACRL (see above) Framework, including its information ideologies. Beilin summarizes criticism of the ACRL position of information “decontextualizes” information, including interesting conversations as to how databases effectively lose “control” of information of the stakeholders. For example, institutions seem to be pushing information for the institution’s own goals, without asking what the students’ information goals are addressed. In short, the publishers and the academy collaborate with similar information regimes instead of understanding the world’s material complexities, including alternative information systems.  

Brandt, D. (1998). Sponsors of literacy. College Composition and Communication, 49(2), 165-185.

We often overlook Brandt’s emphasis of narratives to validate information, but we pay attention to her explanation of class and race impact of literacy. As middle class families have more “enriched” literacy sponsorship, working class community college students may be overwhelmed with easy (read: inexpensive) literacy such as social network and corporate news cycles without multiple contrast and competitive sponsorships. “Sponsors enable and hinder literacy, often forcing the information of new literacy requirements while decertifying older ones.”

Garner, T. (2008). Designing Writing Assignments. NCTA.

Gardner uses her classroom experience to provide ideas on how to effectively define a writing task, explore the expectations for a composition activity, and assemble the supporting materials that students need to do their best work. This book includes dozens of starting points that teachers can customize and further develop for the students in their own classrooms.

Lambert, K. (2016). The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Source Credibility. In Education World. Retrieved from educationworld.com/ultimate-guide-teaching-source-credibility.

Briefly overviews “fake news” after 2016, and frames the teacher’s concerns with a) obvious far-right websites, then b) “hoax sites” of various agenda. The blog post attends mostly to online resources, and provides some useful exercises for class models.

Launspach, S. and Petit, A (2017). Making the Case: The Case Method, Motivation, and the

Teaching of Argument. TETYC 44.4, 403-419.

Launspach and Petit argue that inviting students to engage with case studies in which they can identify multiple issues, stakeholders, and solutions encourages their willingness to invest time and energy in research, critical analysis, argument, and their own writing.

Mays, C. (2017). Writing Complexity, One Stability at a Time: Teaching Writing as a Complex System. College Composition and Communication, 68(3), 559-585.

“This article uses systems and complexity theory to illustrate key characteristics of writing as a complex system. This illustration reveals how writing works on multiple levels of scale, and adds to the body of theoretical knowledge that can be taught within the discipline of writing studies. In so doing, it shows how a complex systems writing pedagogy can benefit both researchers and students.” (Abstract)

Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into practice, 31(2), 132-141.

Review of “the historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household or individual functioning and well-being” (p. 133). We emphasize local and organic intellectualism, to bridge the community-college relationship, instead of erasing the funds of knowledge available to students.

Pasquantonio, V. (2016) Lesson Plan: How to Teach Your Students about Fake News. PBS. Retrieved from pbs.org/newshour/extra/lessons_plans/lesson-plan-how-to-teach-your-students-about-fake-news/

Lesson for Grades 7-12, starting with discussion of reasons why people fall into misinformation, strategies to detect fake news, and discussing Snopes.com methodology.