A Critical Examination of Information Literacy Instruction During a Grade 9 Research Project

Abstract

This study examined how information literacy curriculum and instruction was constructed during a grade 9 social studies research project as a teacher and teacher librarian worked with the whole class for ten periods in the school library. Based on video observations, teacher and student interviews, curriculum documents, and field notes, results showed that teachers held different views of information literacy, what constitutes a curriculum of information literacy, and instructional responsibilities for teaching that curriculum. The collaborative premise of information literacy instruction was consequently not realized. Although the teacher librarian attempted to establish an inquiry-based approach, the WebQuest designed for this unit appeared to reinforce students' task-driven, procedural, fact-finding notions of research projects. Current educational schemata of information literacy include skills for using the new literacies of the Internet to solve problems and the teacher librarian provided instruction in applying “operational” criteria to evaluate websites. The authors argue that the conventional paradigms of information literacy disable students from engaging in authentic and sustained inquiry and from expanding their development of new literacies, particularly the critical new literacies that enable social change. Information literacy education needs to build on established frameworks to emphasize learning from not just about information processes.