UofL Libraries offers a variety of resources to support your Genre, Author Study, and Curated Children's Literature Collection HAT Assessments. Although resources are organized by assignment, you may find that one or more of these databases and resources may be applicable and appropriate to use for multiple assignments.
You should evaluate any information you find for accuracy and credibility. This can often be done by searching across multiple databases and platforms to investigate not only the content of the claim but also the source itself. This technique, known as lateral reading, often includes pairing websites and/or search results with UofL Libraries resources.
For this assignment, groups are tasked with becoming experts on a specific genre and develop a website that highlights their knowledge. Websites should include:
Here are a few resources and strategies that can help you become an expert in your genre.
Dictionaries can provide you a clear, concise definition for your genre. Encyclopedias can provide a more comprehensive understanding on your topic. Many dictionaries and encyclopedias can be found through a Google search; however, they are not always free or of scholarly quality. Although you may not want to cite directly from all of these sources, here are recommendations that can help describe and define your genre. Many also include links to additional sources for further exploration:
Combines the Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus with additional scholarly resources. The database is keyword searchable and many entries include links to additional resources, including editor-selected websites with more information.
Considered an "authoritative guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation" of 600,000 words.
"A free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit," this database often provides thorough overviews, giving researchers a preliminary understanding of concepts related to their research topic. Wikipedia is keyword searchable, and entries often include hyperlinks to other entries and footnotes to sources.
You can also books and e-books for information about your genres. UofL Libraries has over 2,500 books and e-books in its holdings. Our WorldCat catalog also allows us to request and borrow physical titles we don't have through a process known as Interlibrary Loan. There's also a Research DIY tutorial on using WorldCat to find books and an explanation of the Library of Congress call numbers attached to the book so that you can find it in the stacks. Additional tips for searching WorldCat:
For this assignment, you are encouraged to research a children's or young adult book author. You should find information that includes:
In addition to several of the resources mentioned above, additional recommendations of resources for this assignment include:
UofL Libraries has several databases that provide biographical or literary information.
Provides biographical details on modern novelists, poets, playwrights, nonfiction writers, journalists, script writers and more. The biographical sketches often include a list of the author's publications, a link to the author's official website, and/or citations for news articles and interviews with the author.
Dictionary of Literary Biography:
Includes scholarly essays that provide content on the careers and writings of more than 12,00 authors around the world.
Provides access to over 50 databases across a wide variety of subject areas and includes scholarly, literary, and news articles; dissertations, reports, and more.
Combines the texts of over 35,000 literary works with key literary articles, critical reviews, and reference resources.
Provides full-text access to humanities and social sciences research published between 1955 to the present.
Provides access to current and archived news stories in major and local publications from around the country. This database is a great resource for bestseller lists, book reviews, author interviews, and more.
For this assignment, you will need to collect and curate 10-15 pieces of quality children's literature that's focused on an identified broad topic of interest. The collection should include:
We often know exactly how we describe our topics. But sometimes other people, including authors, critics, and scholars, may describe our topic differently. Together, let's use Padlet to brainstorm additional keywords to help us as we search.
Many of the resources recommended above can also assist with this assignment. However, there are additional resources that can help with finding and recommending titles.
You can keyword search this database for a fiction book, author, or series and use your results to find similar titles, author biographies, reviews, and more.
A database of children's e-books, geared toward grades K-6. This contains over 1,100 titles and includes picture books, chapter books, and non-fiction.