I got a last minute-ish request from one of my favorite faculty members to talk to his Shakespeare students about an upcoming assignment. They have to read a Shakespeare play on their own, then write a paper and present to the rest of the class.
I started the LibGuide for the class with my usual books/articles/other resources format, but quickly decided that I had a rare opportunity to match my LibGuide part for part to the assignment.
Here is an excerpt from the assignment sheet (pardon my notes):
A numbered list of the prof’s expectations for content. AMAZING, RIGHT?
In building my LibGuide, I tailored box titles to the assignment’s “ingredient list.” I couldn’t provide specific resource pathways for every single ingredient (specifically #4 & #7), but that’s the nature of the assignment.
I used the following box titles:
#1 Essential Play Information
#2 Conflict, Characters, Themes
#3 Career, Works (Themes Across Plays)
#5 Criticism
#6 The Play In Performance
I think I’ve made it clear enough that the students have no excuse when it comes to finding appropriate and authoritative resources. No more stabbing into the Google dark!
Finally, check out my visual for where to go to find Shakespeare reference and circulating books:
Why tell when you can show, amiright?
In class, I simply showed students how to get to the LibGuide and went through each piece. I also brought in a stack of books (they’re labeled as “I showed this in class” on the LibGuide) and reminded them how useful indexes can be.
On the Fly 'brarian 