Proposed 9th grade Information Literacy Curriculum

Students practice the following research skills to be successful users of information:

• Developing topics
o Work with essential questions and subsidiary questions (either provided
by teacher or developed by self)
o Broaden and narrow topic
o Develop thesis statement that demonstrates a point of view

• Accessing appropriate resources

o Use of local print collections (catalog use; shelf-browsing)
o Subscription databases (provided both by school and by regional library
district)
o Primary sources, both free (online) and by subscription
o Local public and college libraries

• Web searching
o Search engines vs. search directories
o How search engines search
o Search tips and tricks – Boolean operators, etc.
o Keyword vs. subject searching
 Use of the OPAC and databases vs. search engines
 Broaden and narrow keywords

• Evaluate websites
o Credibility
o Accuracy
o Reliability (recognizing bias)
o Relevance
o Date
o Sources used by author
o Scope

• Note-taking skills
o Skimming/scanning
o Paraphrasing/quoting/summarizing

• Ethical use of info

o Source citation
o Plagiarism
o Copyright

10/8/2010
 Proposed 9th grade Information Literacy Curriculum

10/8/2010