Curriculum Connections

An information inquiry project like my exploration of knitting could be a useful and interesting project in a high school classroom to meet AASL/AECT Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning, particularly standards #3 and #4. Students might be asked to explore a hobby that they are not currently involved with, but would like to learn more about (Standard 4, Indicator 1: Seeks information related to various dimensions of personal well-being, such as career interests, community involvement, health matters, and recreational pursuits). Students could follow one of the inquiry models (like Annette Lamb's 8Ws) through the process of gathering, evaluating, and synthesizing information about the hobby. Because they are learning about a topic of personal interest to them, and one that has some hands-on skills involved, students will organize information for practical application (Standard 3, Indicator 1) and integrate new information into their own knowledge (Standard 3, Indicator 2). Graphic organizers and well-developed questions could aid in this process. Finally, students would put their new hobby into practice (like the little knitting project that I completed) and create a presentation which showcases not only their final product, but the process leading up to it (Standard 3, Indicator 4).

More specifically, knitting itself could be used in a first grade classroom to teach and practice mathematics standards. Students could measure yarn (1.5.3 Recognize the need for a fixed unit of length and 1.5.4 Measure and estimate the length of an object to the nearest inch and centimeter), learn and describe basic stitches (1.4.6 Arrange and describe objects in space by position and direction: near, far, under, over, up, down, behind, in front of, next to, to the left or right of), and count and keep track of the number of rows and stitches needed to complete a project (1.1.1 Count, read, and write whole numbers up to 100).

Wishing

Evaluation...this is a tricky step for a lot of people, I'm guessing. I imagine it often gets skipped entirely. Annette Lamb suggests that evaluation of an inquiry project can include reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the project, revising the project, and considering what could be done differently next time. So...here is my reflective wish list:

• I wish I had done more work on this project from the beginning.
• I wish I had really invested the time and energy to learn and discover all I could.
• I wish I had spent less time on the Watching and Wondering stages and even more time on the Webbing, Weaving, and Wiggling.
• I wish I had assignments like this all the time. I'd like to explore lots of other topics, and get graduate credit for it!
• I wish I had interacted with my classmates more. It would have been nice to have more input during the process.

Really, I think evaluation is something that occurs throughout the process. In the Pathways to Knowledge model, Pappas and Tepe say that "searchers use their evaluation of the process to make revisions that enable them to develop their own unique information seeking process". I agree. It seems that good searchers/researchers are able to evaluate as they go. In this way, they make many of the necessary changes right away, rather than waiting to the end the evaluate and wish. However, hindsight is 20/20 and there are some things that just can't be seen clearly until the process is complete.

Carol Kuhlthau also mentions this "evaluation as you go" idea in the Information Search Process Model. For example, she says that students might narrow their topic or choose resources based on the amount of time remaining to complete the project or their interest in the topic. I think this shows a higher level of evaluative thinking on the part of the student.

It has been difficult for me to compare this inquiry experience to that of a student doing a school project. For one thing, I can't imagine knitting is a very utilized topic for research projects. Plus it just seems that my situation was so much different than a student's would be. I was exploring the topic mainly for pleasure...to satisfy my own curiosity. I think it is rare that a student is able to bring that same personal quality to a school project. I had far fewer restrictions and obligations than most students would have (number and types of sources, format of final product, etc). Although, I guess I think that because I am still considering the research projects that I'm used to. In a true inquiry project, the student might have a lot of the same freedoms that I had.

As an adult, an experienced searcher, a librarian, and a library student, I think I have much more refined searching skills than most students. The Webbing stage was pretty smooth for me because of those skills. I think a student might struggle more to find resources and relevant information.

One way in which I can relate to a student doing an inquiry project is through the emotions I experienced. Even though I explored this topic "for fun," I felt a lot of the same pressures and apprehensions that a student might feel. Is this a good topic? Will it work for this project? Am I doing this right? What if I can't find enough information? What will everyone think of my final product? What is everyone else doing and how does my project compare? Will the teacher like it?...and the list goes on. I guess these scary emotions, as well as the good ones (yay-I found the answer...yay-I'm finished!) are constant regardless of the age, experience and situation of the searcher.

Wrapping and Waving

I've learned a lot about knitting from this inquiry experience, and while it has been fun and interesting for myself and the few people who have helped me along the way, I think it is time to share what I've learned with the world (or at least anyone who stumbles upon this blog and wants to follow the link below).

I've wrapped all of my new knitting knowledge up into a package in the form of an online photo album. It is accessible at flickr.com, click here to check it out. You'll see I've added my descriptions to the photos, and you are welcome to add comments of your own if you'd like. While this collection of photos doesn't include every scrap of knowledge I've collected, it does give a pretty good overview of what I've learned and how I've applied the knowledge in a very practical sense.

The Last of the Webbing, Wiggling, and Weaving (I think)

After doing some more Webbing on the web, I was able to find several sites that addressed the questions that I still had during my last post. I looked through the questions on the Critical Evaluation of a Website from Kathy Shrock's Guide for Educators and used these as a tool for measuring whether or not each source was appropriate for my project.

I have to say that I was surprised that there isn't a lot of information out there about the benefits of knitting. I wasn't able to find any scientific studies on the issue, and so I settled for lots of testimonials about how knitting has impacted people's lives and the ways in which it is being used in schools and other organizations. This will cause me to think differently about how I share this information. I don't want to present as fact what is really more like opinion and theory. This is one issue I'd like to look into further when I have more time.

Now I'm on to Wrapping and Waving. I've had a pretty good idea of how I want to package what I've learned and share it with others all along. Since my essential question is "What does a beginning knitter need to know?" I want to share with others what I (as a beginning knitter) have learned. Sharing bits of my first knitting experiences seems to be appropriate, so I've been taking photos along the way. I suppose that ultimately, my final product is the little rectangle of knitting that I completed (it isn't really anything but a small rectangle, but it shows that I've learned the basics), but since that isn't really very exciting, I'm going to put together an electronic scrapbook of sorts to share the whole process. It should be fun to put the photos together with what I've learned about knitting in general, and I think that posting it online will be a great way to share my experience with others.

More of the Middle Steps

I've spent some more time Webbing, Wiggling and Weaving over the past few days, and through several sources (particularly books and people) I've found most of the answers to two of the main questions on my graphic organizer: What tools and materials do I need? and How do I actually do the knitting?

It has been great to gather this information and be able to put it right to use by trying my hand at knitting. I don't think I'll be completing a sweater anytime soon, but I definitely know more and have more skill than I did a week ago.

The Research Cycle's equivalent of Webbing, Wiggling and Weaving comes in the form of four steps: Gathering, Sorting and Sifting, Synthesizing, and Evaluating. I've been doing a lot of gathering, but I've found that I haven't had a need for much sorting and sifting or synthesizing, which McKenzie defines as "a process akin to jigsaw puzzling, the students arrange and rearrange the information fragments until patterns and some kind of picture begin to emerge." I think this is because I did a lot of this work in the Wondering stage. Developing an essential and supporting questions and organizing them into a format that is easy to work with really helped me to identify what information I needed. Now, when I find tidbits of information that I think might be helpful in answering my essential question, I simply take a look at my graphic organizer and ask myself: does this info fit anywhere here...does it answer or begin to answer an of these supporting questions? If so, I plug it in. If not, I toss it out.

Plus, my graphic organizer has helped me to see where there are still holes in what I know (an essential part of Weaving). I'm satisfied with the practical side of knitting, but I want to know more about the history of knitting, popularity of knitting, and benefits of knitting. I've only found a book or two that address the history of knitting, and while everyone has there own opinion about why to knit, I'd like some more concrete evidence about the benefits and current trend in knitting. So I'm off to do some more looking. I think the internet might be a better place to find this info.

Webbing, Wiggling, Weaving, Repeat

It is at this point in the process that the process itself becomes less clear to me. Even though the 8Ws are laid out sequentially, one following another, I find that I do my Webbing, Wiggling and Weaving almost simultaneously. I evaluate sources as I go, and I weave ideas together as I find them, mostly through the help of my graphic organizer.

For example, I decided to do some looking on the Inspire databases for articles about knitting. I thought this would be one place to find information to help answer my questions about the benefits of knitting as well as the current popularity of the hobby. Using a keyword search in Academic Search Elite, I entered "knitting" and received a rather lengthy results list. I thought about narrowing my search using some Boolean operators (i.e. knitting NOT patterns), but thought it might be fun to just browse through the results instead. I was surprised to find a huge range of articles spanning topics from knitting patterns, reviews of knitting books, celebrities who knit, knitting programs in schools, male knitters, popularity of knitting, knitting for relaxation...and the list goes on. Even though I was in the Webbing stage, I went ahead and did some Wiggling along the way.

According to Annette Lamb, Wiggling involves evaluating not only the authority of the source, but the content of the resource itself. Because I had so many results to sift through in this database search, I had to do some evaluating of which articles would be useful and which would not. It was fairly easy to eliminate many of the articles whose content was simply book reviews or knitting patterns. I knew that in the long run, this just wasn't the type of information I was looking for. I also had to evaluate the source of the article and the authority of the person writing. A few articles listed benefits of knitting, but seemed to be more opinion than fact (they listed no sources for their information, or any rationale as to why they stated what they did), so I chose not to rely on them.

As I began gathering articles that seemed reliable and valuable to my search, I did some weaving by pulling tidbits of information out of the articles and plugging it into my graphic organizer. In this way, I could clearly see which questions were answered by each article, how the various articles related to each other, and where there were still gaps in my research.

Webbing

Now that I have my topic focused through an essential and several supporting questions, I am ready to begin the hard-core research phase of the process. In her 8Ws model, Annette Lamb refers to this stage as Webbing. In this phase, students "locate, search for, and connect ideas and information." Key actions in the Webbing phase are:

• planning a search strategy,
• identifying types of information,
• selecting resource formats,
• using starting points, and
• conducting an internet search.

In analyzing my questions and thinking about where I might find the answers, I've identified the following types of sources that might be consulted:

• books,
• videos/DVDs,
• internet resources: websites for knitting organizations, informational sites about knitting, electronic databases (for recent articles about knitting), and
• experts: owners/employees at local yarn shops, friends and co-workers who are seasoned knitters.

I've chosen a few key starting points, including a local yarn shop, an encyclopedia of knitting, and an easy-to-follow "how to knit" book. These resources should be a good place start - leading me to basic information and perhaps further questions along the way.

The Yarn Shop

My first stop on the road of research was a local and well-known yarn shop. After browsing for a few minutes, I was able to talk with the owner. I asked her a few basic questions about what tools and materials I would need to begin to knit. She showed me the various knitting needles and suggested a size 7 or 8, and the directing me to a skein of yarn that would be good for practice. When I noticed that needles are available in many different materials (metal, plastic, wood, bamboo), I asked the owner what the difference between these was, and she said it was basically personal preference. I'm curious to know if there is more to it than that: why would someone prefer metal over wood, or plastic over bamboo? A few other questions I have after my visit are: How are the needle sizes determined? When should I use a larger/smaller size needle? What are all the differences between and uses of the various types of yarn I saw at the shop?

After my visit to the yarn shop, I decided to do some more research in the library books I had picked up and internet resources I identified. I allowed my pre-formulated questions, as well as the newer ones mentioned above to guide my research. As I found various bits of information, I categorized them according to which of my supporting questions they helped to answer (following my graphic organizer from the Wondering stage).

Searching for this topic was fairly easy. I used the obvious keyword of "knitting," but also looked for information about "craft yarn," "wool," and "textile arts." The most difficult part of my searching was narrowing down my results list (in the library catalog, internet search engines, and electronic databases). A search for "knitting" returned everything from knitting patterns to research on why knitting has gained in popularity. I had a difficult time coming up with other universal keywords and therefore had to do a lot of browsing through long lists in order to find the types of information I was looking for. One benefit of this process was that I did come across a few resources that I wasn't even looking for, but which turned out to be helpful and interesting.

10-7-06

More Wondering

Carol Kuhlthau's Information Search Process includes a step for investigating the information, becoming familiar with the general information and using this a basis for focusing your research. I did this by browsing the library's catalog and then the library's shelves, as well as the internet for information on knitting. I found that there were plenty of materials on how to knit and patterns for knitting, but much less on the history of knitting, how wool is made into yarn, and the like. Even after exploring the information in this way, most of my questions about knitting remain the same.

Jamie McKenzie, in her inquiry model, the Research Cycle identifies Questioning as a very important step in the inquiry process. She argues that many school research projects are simply "word movers," where students are able to simply cut and paste information from one source into their final product without really internalizing or analyzing the information for themselves. To remedy this problem, she suggests that students develop an essential question; one that solves a problem or makes a decision and requires students to come to their own conclusions based on the information they find. Students then map out supporting questions that relate and help to answer the essential question.

I agree that this method of formulating a focus for the project can really guide the remainder of the process, so I've decided to use it in my own experience. Because I am very new to the idea of knitting, my essential question can be summed up as "What does every beginning knitter need to know?" This question will guide me in deciding which pieces of information are most helpful and worth being included in my final product. It also allows me to solve the problem of not knowing how to knit (or even where to begin). Plus, I think it will lend itself to the format that my final product will take. I already have the idea of creating a "beginner's suvival guide to knitting" type of document. This essential question can be answered by finding the answers to several other supporting questions. The relationships between these questions can be seen in my graphic organizer.


10-6-06

Wondering

Knitting...what would I like to know? Maybe I should start with what I already know...

• knitting is done with yarn and knitting needles
• there are different types of yarn and different sizes of needles (I think)
• there are different types of stitches - a couple I've heard of are knit and pearl
• knitting seems to take a long time
• I've heard of "finger knitting" and "knitting in the round", but I don't know what either of those terms mean (and I might have made up the second one completely)
• yarn comes from wool, which comes from sheep; the wool is spun into yarn and dye is added for color, but that's the extent of my knowledge in this area

Now, what do I want to know about knitting...

• Why are there different sized needles? How do you know which size to use?
• As a beginning knitter, would one type of yarn be better than the others for me to use? Which types are easiest and most difficult to knit? Why would I chose one type of yarn over another?
• How exactly do you knit? How is knitting different from pearling? Are there other types of stitches? How do I know when to do each type of stitch?
• What kinds of projects can I make? What is the easiest thing to knit (a scarf?)? The most difficult? How long will it take me to knit something? What if I were a professional knitter - then how long would it take me to complete a project?
• What is finger knitting? How is it done? Why is it done? What about "knitting in the round"?
• Are there any other tools that I'll need to begin knitting?
• How is knitting different from crocheting?
• How is yarn made?
• Are there any physical, mental, emotional, or social benefits of knitting? For kids? For the elderly? For busy, stressed out students/workers/wives like me?
• Why is knitting such a popular hobby? Its popularity seems to have exploded in the past couple years (especially among kids and college students). Is that true or have I just become more aware of it?

This is the beginning of my KWL chart - a helpful tool in the Wondering stage according to Annette Lamb. It has definitely helped me to see that I have more questions than I realized at first.

Another part of the Wondering stage is to explore information on the topic. I think I'll do that now. I'm hoping that after I begin looking through information and continue to develop questions, I'll be able to narrow my topic down to one essential question and several supporting questions, which will then guide the rest the project.

A Preliminary Search

Well, I've narrowed my choices of topic down to three:
1. Homeschooling
2. Indianapolis
3. Knitting

I did a quick preliminary search and assessment of the resources available to me on each of these topics. Carol Kuhlthau's suggests this type of preliminary search as one action of the Topic Selection stage, and I can certainly see its usefulness. It is important to make sure that resources on the topic exist and are reasonably available before choosing to explore the topic further. Choosing a topic is difficult enough (at least for me); it would be very frustrating to go through the trouble of making that decision only to find that there is very little information available on the topic.

So, for each of the topics listed above, here is what I've found:
1. Homeschooling - My local library has an extensive collection of materials for and about homeschooling. This includes print and electronic resources including a great online compilation of websites. There are a couple different local homeschool organizations which I could contact, and I know of several homeschooling families that might be willing to talk with me about the topic. As far as resource go, this seems to be a great choice. However, because I am pressed for time, I might be limited to using the print and electronic resources (obtaining personal contact with homeschoolers and organizations might take more time than I have).

2. Indianapolis - Again, there are plenty of resources available on this topic, and in many different forms. Indiana travel books would probably be a good place to start, and I was pleased to find that my library has a vertical file of travel information that includes maps and brochures from several Indianapolis attractions. Of course, web sites would be a great up-to-date resource for this topic, as would talking with individuals who have enjoyed living in or spending time in Indy. However, I'm having a hard time getting excited about this topic and visualizing how well it fits with the whole information inquiry process. I know it is a valid information need, but it just seems too basic for this project.

2. Knitting - Resources on this topic come in many different formats, which excites me. I know that my library has a multitude of books and videos on knitting and I'm guessing that there are probably magazines and many web sites that address the topic as well. I also know of a couple great knitting/yarn shops in town that would be fun and interesting to visit. Finally, I have several co-workers and friends who knit and would be more than willing to answer my questions and help me along. My only concern with this topic is that it is not "meaty" enough. I know I would enjoy learning more about knitting and even how to knit, but will I be able to formulate enough substantial questions to make this project worthwhile? I sure hope so, because I have finally made up my mind. I choose KNITTING as my topic (and to think it only took me about forever to make this decision)!

A little more watching...

Okay, just a couple more thoughts and then I really must move on from this Watching stage.

1. Knitting: It seems that everyone around me enjoys knitting. It is no longer "grandma's hobby." Instead, it seems to be popular with all ages from young children to college students and beyond. I think I'd like to learn how to knit, but it intimidates me. There are so many things I don't know about it: What is the difference between knitting and pearling? Would I have to learn how to finger knit? What size needles and what kind of yarn should I use? What is the difference between knitting and other similar crafts (like crochet)? And even if I can grasp the concepts and methods of knitting, will it take me months and months to complete a project? This could be a fun topic to explore. Not only would I learn a lot, but I'd gain a new skill.

2. Indianapolis: My husband and I are planning to spend a long weekend in Indianapolis soon, but we don't have the details of the trip nailed down. I have a hunch that there is lots to see and do in that city, but as of now we only have a couple must-see attractions on our list. What are the hot spots to visit in Indianapolis? Where are the best places to eat? I think I'd like to visit the mall, but what makes it different from any other mall? Are there any special events (shows, games, etc.) going on during our visit that we should plan to attend? What about the "hidden treasures" of Indy, are there any out-of-the-way, less popular places that are still very much worth a visit?

I am definitely experiencing several of the emotions that Carol Kuhlthau outlines in the Information Search Process: apprehension at work ahead, confusion, uncertainty, anxiety. As she suggests in the topic selection stage, I am currently weighing all my options for a topic based on my own interests, the requirements for the assignment, the time I have left to work (not much!) and the resources available. I know Dr. Lamb has said not to stress out about choosing a topic - there is no "wrong" idea and the whole inquiry process allows for changes in direction along the way, but I can't help but try to figure out how this project will end up depending on which topic I choose.