Building Students’ Skills with the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy

Along with teaching information literacy classes, a citation analysis I conducted in 2023 on almost two hundred fifty research papers written by students in introductory English courses at my university has given me insight into the digital literacy gaps that students have been navigating. The results of this citation analysis showed that even though our students had participated in information literacy classes and had twenty-four-hour access to library services, they still frequently turned to unreliable resources for their research. Personal blogs, retail sales websites, social media, advertisements, and tabloids were just some of the inappropriate sources cited in their final papers (Nunnelly-Stewart et al. 107–08).

These findings make it clear that many students need to develop stronger digital literacy skills, especially when it comes to evaluating sources and navigating online information. If students are using the sources identified in the citation analysis for academic work, they may also be using them to make decisions in their day-to-day lives. While our library instruction classes address digital literacy in a general way, the new findings suggested that these one-shot classes are not enough to provide students with the skills they need to conduct online research in and outside of class. For digital literacy instruction to make an impact, it must be taught across multiple sessions.

These conclusions inspired me to find a meaningful way to integrate digital literacy directly into students’ learning. Ultimately, my goal is to teach students how to use digital spaces and tools safely and efficiently while avoiding participation in toxic online behavior.

MLA Guide to Digital Literacy as Framework

Instead of just adding a few digital literacy topics into my single-session information literacy classes, I wanted to create a more comprehensive curriculum of basic digital literacy skills. In the spirit of affordable learning, it was important to me that the text I used for my digital literacy course be available to our students at no cost. I also needed a text that was going to help me organize topics and class activities through multiple meetings.

After evaluating various options, I found the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy, by Ellen C. Carillo. Right away, I appreciated the tone in which this book was written. It was more conversational than the dense and jargon-heavy language we are used to when it comes to academic literature, making it an easy read for both me and my future students. Because our library already provides an electronic subscription to the text, students have unlimited, around-the-clock access to the online version at no cost to them. Finding a text that supplied a strong framework for my course while eliminating any financial barriers for the students made the idea of this module more possible.

The guide has been instrumental in shaping my planning for the course. The chapters have helped me create a practical timeline, giving me a logical outline of which topics to cover at specific points. The guide also includes instructor resources and appendixes that have been helpful as I come up with class activities and discussion prompts.

Curriculum Design

After my proposal made its way through the proper university channels, I was approved to teach a five-week digital literacy module within a semester-long honors course. This fall, the class will meet for two seventy-five-minute class sessions per week. To make the lessons fun and relatable, I decided that the class will take reality television as our special research topic. As reality television is a big contributor to current popular culture, I feel confident that most, if not all, of the students will have at least some basic familiarity with a few reality television shows. With the wide variety of reality television show formats (competition, dating, docuseries, lifestyle, social experiment, etc.), the students should have no problem finding a show that interests them.

Reality television works well for this module because using a familiar topic reduces the pressure on students to research within a highly specialized field, which allows them to focus more directly on developing digital literacy skills. Further, students who are active fans and consumers of these shows have already used the Internet to dig deeper into storylines, cast biographies, rumors, interviews, commentary, and fan reactions. Storylines tend to continue online through different mediums, where fans of the show use search engines, browse social media, read online news media, and participate in online debates. In the course I’ve created, these practices are developed into skills that will easily translate into students’ other classes.

For example, in first-year writing, students learn how to write an argumentative essay, which requires them to find sources that support their argument on a topic, along with a counterargument. In order to determine whether credible sources support their arguments, students need the ability to evaluate digital resources. In history, students need to understand the difference between primary and secondary sources. In health science, they need to ascertain whether popular medical claims have been vetted by relevant medical professionals or messaging has been distorted to misdirect researchers. In every field, students must be able to evaluate information critically, recognize bias, and determine which sources are appropriate to support their arguments.

Because research skills are core to academic writing throughout college, strong digital literacy skills will benefit students throughout their time at university, whereas poor research skills will affect students’ ability to write effectively across all disciplines. Whether students are aware of it or not, by completing the activities outlined in the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy, they are acquiring habits they need for their future academic writing. I hope that practicing these skills in subject areas that interest them will help them become more familiar with applying critical thinking to the information they find online.

Course Objectives

I devised specific outcomes and goals for my course that were informed by my students’ level of digital literacy. For example, as mentioned above, the results of my citation analysis showed that students needed to build their evaluation and research skills. Carillo focuses on these needs in chapters devoted to locating primary sources (chapter 6) and exploring the credibility of sources (chapter 8). Also, with the rapid growth and accessibility of artificial intelligence (AI), it is critical that students understand how algorithms, filters, and automated systems operate and shape our daily information consumption. My goal in integrating chapter 2, on filters, algorithms, bots, and visual manipulation, alongside the third edition’s new chapter on understanding generative AI tools (chapter 3) is to help students build crucial critical thinking skills and develop AI fluency. I also want students to better understand how these tools can influence our opinions and beliefs in ways that might not be in their best interest.

While being online has given society a number of wonderful benefits, anyone who has spent any amount of time online has witnessed that our digital spaces can become toxic, hostile, and in some cases predatory. That’s why I wanted to design the course to help protect students’ well-being and identity and encourage thoughtfulness in their own behavior and participation within digital spaces. One of the things that stood out to me when reviewing the guide was Carillo’s view of digital literacy as a responsibility, part of being a “citizen in a democratic society that depends on [students’] informed and thoughtful participation” (2). The guide presents digital literacy as a basic human right that empowers people to use information effectively to make critical decisions about all aspects of their lives.

However, it takes more than just the effective evaluation and use of information to contribute to society. It also takes a recognition of the bias that can be perpetuated through digital tools. By noting throughout the guide how information from algorithms, AI, and websites can reinforce bias, Carillo gives students the opportunity to think about how this bias can perpetuate stereotypes. My hope is that participating in course activities that ask them to spot online artifacts that push an agenda will make students well practiced at identifying harmful messages and intentions. The goal is for students to understand their responsibility to not further the spread of bias or misinformation, whether by reposting it, repeating it, or including it in their research assignments. Because I want students to engage the most with this aspect of digital literacy, these lessons of responsibility are centered throughout the course.

Instructional Methodology

This course was designed using David Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory, a pedagogy grounded in the belief that people learn best through firsthand experiences. This system helped me create a cycle for each class of introduction, application, and reflection that invites students to interact with the concepts and reflect together on their discoveries. The guide also includes an appendix of sample lesson plans, referenced in the applicable chapters. The lesson plans specify the outcomes of the lessons and provide different class activities.

Each class will focus on one or two chapters of the guide and will start off with a lecture. While I’m not planning to assign mandatory reading to the class, I’ll show students how to access the online version at the start of the lecture so they can follow along if they wish. The lecture portion of each class will introduce the main topics of that day’s chapter and provide live demonstrations to help students become familiar with the vocabulary and examples. After the lecture, the class will break into groups to complete a hands-on activity. This activity is followed by a class discussion where the groups reflect and share their findings to build a collective awareness. Below, I outline a typical session structured around chapter 2 of the guide, “Understanding Algorithms, Bots, and Visual Manipulations”:

• Student perception poll: Each class starts with a two-item poll asking students to describe their command of a topic by choosing one of the following three responses to each statement: “Not true of me,” “True of me,” or “I do not understand what you mean by that.” The chapter 2 statements are as follows:
  • When navigating an online forum or social media site, I am confident in my ability to recognize whether a user account or comment stream is formatted manually by a real person or structured by an automated system.
  • When navigating an online forum or social media site, I am confident in my ability to recognize whether a filter was used on an image or video.
• Lecture: Teaches the mechanics of algorithmic filters, automated bots, and visual manipulations; addresses inherent bias, target vulnerability, and detection difficulty; and provides examples of filter bubbles, algorithmic silence, and malicious bots.
• Group activity: Adapted from lesson plan 4, activity 4.1, in the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy. Students self-select for groups according to the type of reality show they are most interested in. Each group will search for topics and people related to their chosen reality show format using both Google and DuckDuckGo. The students then try to identify the differences between the algorithms in both browsers, determine the algorithms’ purposes, and spot any inherent biases.
• Reflection: Class concludes with reflection and discussion on the groups’ findings.

This course follows the same format throughout the five weeks, starting with a poll to open the session and proceeding through a lecture on a chapter from the guide, a hands-on activity, and an end-of-class discussion to review what the groups discovered. Not every instructor is able to obtain multiple weeks, with multiple sessions per week, to create their curriculum. Below are some alternatives that would require less time.

Set up an afternoon workshop. This could be scheduled for a couple of hours, and your university may approve of a certificate for the students who complete the workshop. Since the workshop will help students with their research assignments, faculty members will probably be open to promoting it or even offering their students an incentive to attend. Instead of working in groups, students will follow along on computers during the demonstration. Encourage reflection throughout the lecture. Teach relevant chapters together—for example, chapter 6, on primary sources; chapter 7, on reading laterally; and chapter 8, on source credibility.

Create online modules that can be taken at students’ own pace for digital badges or other microcredentials. For example, Springshare’s LibWizard tool allows users to build interactive tutorials and self-paced modules with quizzes and offers certificates of completion.

Work directly with faculty members across other departments. If you’ve observed that your students would benefit from some digital literacy instruction, it’s probably safe to assume that other faculty members have as well. Reach out to other instructors and offer ways to integrate digital literacy into their course design. This fall, I will hold a workshop for faculty members that covers the basic concepts of digital literacy and also provides options for working with the library to integrate digital literacy into their classrooms. You can also schedule time to meet with faculty members throughout the year and even incorporate their assignments into your instruction so that the lessons are relevant to their classwork.

Course Assessment

It was important to me to design a course where the learning would come mostly from engagement with the material. Assessment will be done through the polls at the start of class, the end-of-course survey, and an open-book quiz that reviews the foundational points discussed in class to ensure that students retain the concepts. The quiz is also another opportunity for students to practice using the guide as a reference—which they can continue to do throughout their university careers.

If you feel that additional assessment is needed, the activities can be converted into individual assignments, and reflections can be done the next time the class meets. Adding discussion posts would also be a good way to gauge students’ understanding of the topics. I left discussion posts out of my course design because I wanted to focus on in-person group activities. However, group discussion posts that would function much like Reddit posts could be assigned. Here, students could post artifacts from the Internet regarding their reality TV topic, and other students could respond much as they would online, either agreeing or disagreeing with what they were seeing, using skills from the course to verify whether the information being shared was accurate.

Beyond the Module

Designing this module has allowed me to address some of my concerns about students’ exposure to the current state of the digital world. When my students finish this course next fall, I want them to be able to navigate online environments productively and use digital tools thoughtfully. I want them to understand the sheer volume of misinformation that takes up space in our digital environments and actively avoid contributing to it or getting caught up in toxic online behavior. I also hope they will leave the course with stronger habits of attention, evaluation, and reflection that they can carry into future coursework.

Because the module is still in development, I see this course as an evolving effort to give students more intentional preparation for digital life. What the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy has provided so far is a clear and accessible framework for organizing that effort. Through that framework, I hope students will strengthen the research habits and critical thinking skills they need across disciplines and beyond the university.

Works Cited

Carillo, Ellen C. MLA Guide to Digital Literacy. 3rd ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2026.

Kolb, David A. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. 2nd ed., Pearson Education, 2015.

Nunnelly-Stewart, Amanda, et al. “Citation Analysis Reveals Better Grades for First-Year English Students Using Library Resources: A Case Study.” Practical Academic Librarianship: The International Journal of the SLA, vol. 16, no. 1, May 2026, pp. 97–112.