Better Together: Changing the Model of Freshman English Instruction through Partnership

This poster presents a partnership between the Humanities Librarian and the Writing and Communication Program, which directs the English 1101 and 1102 curriculum at a four-year urban university focused on science and technology. Due to the critical need for information literacy instruction in the Writing and Communication Program classes, the library\u27s model of instruction has evolved from a single librarian instructing all English classes to a distributed program of six subject liaison librarians teaching information literacy skills in English 1101 and 1102. As most undergraduate students at this institution are engineering or science majors, English 1101 and 1102 are often the only time that the receive library instruction, making it vital to teach research skills they will need for the rest of their careers. This poster presentation will discuss developing the partnership with the Writing and Communication Program faculty who teach English 1101 and 1102 to change the model of library instruction. It will also cover in detail the process of developing a group of teaching librarians, including the training program for librarians created with the Writing and Communication Program faculty. Some librarians in the teaching group were new to instruction, while others were experienced teachers; planning to provide appropriate scaffolding for them as they learned is also an important topic that will be covered. Lastly, this poster will discuss the assessment used in the program, and what the teaching librarians have learned from the partnership to become stronger and more effective instructors