Mellon Information Literacy Initiative Grant

Classics

Overview

Over the past three years, the Mellon grant has allowed our department to spend a significant amount of time articulating the goals we have for our majors, and implementing a series of curricular changes that will better accomplish these goals. The department started with the question of what information literacy looked like in their major. Based on discussions about the kinds of skills and tools they wanted developed a three pronged approach to teaching and assessing information literacy.

Activities under the Grant

• Developed course grid.

Situated each of the specific skills and tools important for students to have by their senior year in particular courses. Designed assignments that specifically give students practice using a range of these tools and give them a better idea of what can be done with them.

• Instituted a Junior Skills Portfolio

This will function to document that students have the necessary skills to equip them to begin the comps process. In addition to specific assignments, the portfolio requires a reflective essay in which students explain how the assignments included show that they have achieved the stated goal, identify which skills or tools they feel most and least comfortable with, and describe one sample search process.

• Extensively revised comps process.

Instead of students choosing their own topic for a research paper, the department will define a broad area of investigation in the context of a senior seminar and colloquium each year. Students will create a proposal based on guidelines of the major regional professional association, turn this proposal into a 20-minute conference talk, and revise their talks into a brief article for submission

• Created assessment plan

The assessment plan that comes at two points: the end of the Junior year, attached to the new Junior Skills Portfolio, and again in the Senior year, after completion of the new comps project. The bibliographies of the comps papers will be analyzed to explore several factors, including: the proportion of monographs and articles, the journals represented, the dates of sources used, and the overall number of sources consulted. The department is also planning a qualitative survey of the seniors to gather information on which reference and search tools were of the greatest help to them as they worked on their projects

Outcomes

• The grant has facilitated countless discussions about student learning, and gave the department the opportunity to create intentional and coordinated assignments, as well as to make the curriculum more cohesive.

• Built strong and productive ties to the library.

• Positive results from curricular changes in the skill level of students.

Definition of Information Literacy

Information literacy in Classics requires three things: knowing what sort of questions and problems Classicists study; understanding how and when to use any reference or search tool appropriate to addressing these questions and problems; and understanding how to evaluate the information these tools uncovered.

Analecta Technica

The Analecta Technica is a portfolio that will normally be completed by the end of the junior year. The purpose of requiring the portfolio is to ensure that students are prepared for the work they will be doing for their senior projects (seminar and colloquium).

The overall goal of the Analecta Technica is to demonstrate that students are ready to analyze and interpret elements (e.g. texts, artifacts, institutions, etc.) of the ancient Greco-Roman world within their various contexts (e.g. political, social, linguistic, etc.) through the use of primary sources as evidence and secondary sources to situate their work in the context of the discipline. To achieve this goal, students will need to be able to locate, utilize, and cite the sources indicated above.

Items in the portfolio must document the following skills:

• Locating (with the searching tools described below) and citing (in the format specified by the departmental style sheet) primary sources.
• Locating (with the searching tools described below) and citing (in the format specified by the departmental style sheet) secondary sources.
• Using primary sources as evidence.
• Using secondary sources to situate work in the context of the discipline

Items in the portfolio must document experience in all of the following tools in boldface as well as any three others:

Reference Tools

Basic Reference Tools for the Languages:

• Lexicons
• Grammars
• Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG)
• Indices Verborum

Basic Reference Tools for Texts:

• Commentaries
• TLG

General Reference Tools:

• Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD)
• Perseus
• Pauly Wissowa, The New Pauly

Specific Reference Tools:

• History: Cambridge Ancient History, (also Perseus)
• Mythology: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC)
• Art and Archaeology: Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, (also LIMC, Perseus)
• Geography: New Barrington Atlas

Search Tools

General Library organization and search engines (exercises/library session provided by Heather Tompkins)

Search Tools specific to Classics:

• L'annee Philologique
• TOCS-IN
• Purposeful, physical browsing of shelves
• Footnotes and bibliographies of published works
• Citation indexes

Subject-oriented search tools:

• Nestor
• Diotima
• Published subject bibliographies
• Bryn Mawr Classical Review

COURSE GRID FOR SITUATING PORTFOLIO REQUIREMENTS

Courses	Skills	Tools
Classics 110	1, 2, 3	3a; 4d; 5
Classics 112	3	4b
Classics 114	3	7b
Greek History	1, 2, 3, 4	4a, c and d
Roman History	1, 3	�
Greek/Latin 103	�	1b
Greek/Latin 204	�	1a, 3b
200-level language courses	1, 3	2a
300-level language courses	2, 4	6a and b

Thus the portfolio should include:

• the check-off sheet showing courses taken that require use of specified tools and skills 1 and 2 (as specified in the grid above);
• assignments that document use of the remaining required tools not encountered in courses taken thus far
• papers or other assignments documenting skills 3 and 4
• a brief reflective essay (1-2 pages) addressing the large goal. This essay should explain how the items you have chosen to include demonstrate the required skills and tools, where in our departmental curriculum you had opportunities to practice them, and which ones you feel you may need more practice with. You should also briefly describe for us a sample one of the search processes you have undertaken.