Educated Citizenry (Critical Information Literacy)

Educated Citizenry / Critical Information Literacy (CIL) is one of the SEEDS Values in the Montclair State University SEEDS Curriculum. 

• This guide is intended for faculty teaching Educated Citizenry / Critical Information Literacy in SEEDS courses. It contains information about CIL, a CIL rubric developed by Montclair librarians (see the link below), as well as activities and assessments related to CIL that instructors may find helpful.
• An Educated Citizenry page geared towards undergraduate students has already been integrated into a number of the Libraries' subject guides and can also be found under the SIL resources for students section of this guide.

If there is any additional content you would like to see on this guide, including specific resources you or your students found helpful as it concerns the Educated Citizenry / CIL, please let Bonnie Fong (Head for Research & Reference Services) know. Thank you for your patience as we continue to update this guide.

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University Libraries and the SEEDS Advisory Board are co-sponsoring Educated Citizenry / Critical Information Literacy Faculty Workshops & Discussions throughout 2025-2026, where faculty and librarians will have the opportunity to share with each other how they define, teach, and assess educated citizenry and critical information literacy.  Please considering joining one of these sessions to discuss classroom activities that foster student engagement and ideas for assessing Educated Citizenry/CIL.  We ask that faculty register as coffee/tea and desserts will be provided.

Note: Based on feedback from our first Faculty Workshop & Discussion, we would also be open to bringing our workshop & discussion to a department/college/school meeting.

Librarians are available to help as you work on integrating Educated Citizenry / Critical Information Literacy into your courses and curriculum.

A number of Montclair librarians contributed content to this guide, including Christina Getaz.