These lesson plans are intended to serve as supplements to the existing activities, readings, and assignments you have planned for your classes. They've all been used in library and information literacy workshops and taught by the UH Instruction Team. If you have any questions about adapting them or incorporating them into your coursework, contact Veronica Arellano Douglas, Instruction Coordinator, vadouglas@uh.edu.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to describe why it's important to cite sources in their writing and differentiate between quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing information.

Lesson Overview

Students will brainstorm different reasons scholars cite their sources in papers and presentations. They will be introduced to summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting sources in their writing. Then they will read a short article; identify summaries, paraphrasing, and quoting within the article; and practice writing their own summaries and paraphrases.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to apply rhetorical strategies to analyzing multimedia sources.

Lesson Overview

Students will reflect on their relationship and interaction with media, analyze a pre-selected video advertisement using rhetorical strategies, and apply that critical analysis to their own selected video, image, or advertisement. 

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to identify a starting point for inquiry (question, topic, etc.); use different information resources to further their research; and revise their research question or topic based on what they discover.

Lesson Overview

Using a think-pair-share activity, students will determine what they already know and want to know about their preliminary research question or topic, which will guide their research. They'll do some pre-searching in Google to learn more about their topic and gain vocabulary to begin searching library databases. Then they will participate in a group activity to learn more about the different features of library research databases.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to evaluate information based on their information need and a source's appropriateness to the situation at hand (academic or personal).

Lesson Overview

Students will work in small groups to answer information seeking and evaluation information based on everyday scenarios. Then they'll apply those same critical thinking and evaluation techniques to academic research scenarios.