Reading skills are vital to the survival of our democratic society. What can we do to encourage and improve civic literacy in our community? Share your concerns and discuss practical solutions.
Our virtual discussion will be facilitated by Dr. Alison Head, author of “Reading in the Age of Distrust,” the April essay for the Project Information Literacy (PIL) Provocation Series. Librarians from SJCPL and the Schurz Library at Indiana University South Bend will moderate the discussion. Read the essay here: https://projectinfolit.org/pubs/provocation-series/essays/reading-in-the-age-of-distrust.html
In “Reading in the Age of Distrust,” Dr. Head argues many educators and librarians may be overlooking how the venerable task of reading has dramatically changed in a world plagued by an endless stream of misinformation, where students have been naturally distrustful of news and information since they were very young. Students at all levels of their education, as well as non-students, must be taught how to be discerning readers who can engage actively with texts and better understand the source of information and how it is being disseminated at warp speed across a vast universe of connected networks. These critical reading skills are urgently needed in a high-speed and chaotic world where information is a free-for-all and even the smartest people can get fooled.
Drawing on this essay, we will discuss what can be done to better prepare K-12 students and the general public for civic literacy and becoming deep and analytical readers. How can public libraries, in partnership with academic libraries, encourage and improve close reading skills in the general public and with college-bound students? As recent events have shown, this is vital to the survival of our democratic society. In this virtual session with Dr. Head, we will hear first-hand concerns from the community while surfacing practical solutions most valuable in our local context.
Dr. Alison Head is Editor of the PIL Provocation Series, Director of Project Information Literacy, and a Senior Researcher at the metaLAB (at) Harvard. She developed and taught new media courses as the Roy Disney Visiting Professor at Saint Mary’s College in California for 10 years. @alisonjhead
Registration is required.
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