Information literacy
Credits: 4 Word Range: 1000-1500 words *Can submit as oral, visual, and/or written text
Due Date: Friday, Term 3 Week 3
Evidence gathering template - marking schedule explained
Sources and reliability
You will need 4-6 sources. These must be included in your booklet.
They can be articles, podcasts, documentaries, TEDTalks, books, blog posts, even Twitter threads or Instagram (be careful about reliability with this kind of thing though). You can also interview people and do surveys.
Your sources should provide information on multiple perspectives to your topic. It shouldn't be all one sided. If you are struggling to find reliable sources for one of the perspectives, your topic may not be suitable.
To see if your source is reliable ask these questions - most of the answers to these questions can be found with a quick google:
Who is the publisher? How long have they been publishing for? How many readers/viewers/listeners do they have?
Who is the writer/speaker/producer? What background do they have on the topic, or as an investigator? How unbiased are they? Do they have a record of reporting on certain perspectives?
Who is quoted/interviewed? What expertise do they on the topic? Eg do they have education on that topic and can speak authoritatively or are they just some guy on the street?
You can also use the CRAAP test to help you establish if a source is reliable.
NB Not all sources will be purely fact-based and unbiased. When using something like blogs, or social media, or other opinion based sources, you need to acknowledge the bias in your notes. It's ok to have sources with some bias as long as you explain that you understand this and also balance it with other unbiased sources.
Instructions
This activity requires you to complete an inquiry into an area that arises from your text studies.
While fiction texts may trigger an issue for exploring, the direction for your investigation and your information sources will be outside of that fictional world.
The inquiry enables you to demonstrate your information literacy skills and your ability to form developed conclusions from your investigation.
Your teacher will provide a digital workbook to record your findings and you will work in a structured way through this inquiry, meeting targets and sharing ideas with classmates and your teacher as you progress.
You will have some class time to complete this inquiry, but you will also need to do some work at home.
You will be assessed on how well you:
Ask good questions
Take useful notes on the sources you read, listen to, and view
Comment on the reliability of your sources
Collate all the information from your sources
Form developed conclusions based on your research
This standard contributes towards UE literacy reading credits.
What to do
Choose a topic and frame your inquiry
Your topic needs to have more than one viewpoint, where different people have different ideas or perspectives. It does not need to be entirely black and white, however.
Do some reading and viewing with your classmates. Check to see whether there are enough sources out there to support your research.
Brainstorm by gathering a range of different perspectives and ideas from friends, family and teachers.
Decide on your topic.
Frame some questions to guide your research.
Use appropriate strategies to locate and process information
You need to find 4-6 sources to investigate your topic.
Do some further reading and/or viewing. Take notes on what you are reading and/or viewing in the research doc.
Comment on the reliability of your sources.
Revise and polish your questions based on what you have found out.
Review the data you have collected
Review your information and draw conclusion(s) that can be supported by your evidence. This means it needs to be clear from your notes how you came to this conclusion.
Organise your notes.
Present your findings in an appropriate form.
You can write a report, give a speech, or make a presentation, podcast, documentary, or Loom.
You will need to present findings that support at least two attitudes towards your topic and draw your own developed conclusion(s).
