Talk:Teaching for Change

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 January 2019 and 8 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Icf17.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:03, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

External vs Wikipedia Links
This webpage has many external links in the text of the article. Those should be moved to references or the external links page. Also there are few links to other wikipedia articles. I'm moving some of that around, but there is still more work to do. Mellen22 (talk) 22:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Integrate external information
These links should be integrated into the story Mellen22 (talk) 17:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Teaching for Change's Bookstore is featured in Shelf-Awareness.


 * The Huffington Post references the work of the Zinn Education Project.


 * Tellin' Stories is featured in a full-length article in the Spring 2009 (Vol. 23 No. 03) edition of Rethinking Schools.


 * Teaching for Change's Bookstore is observed through the eyes of a backpack journalist.


 * The National Education Association (NEA) produced a 10-minute film about the work of Tellin' Stories.


 * Yes!Magazine recommends the Zinn Education Project.


 * The work of Tellin' Stories was featured in the 2nd edition of the National Association of Elementary School Principals Sharing the Dream Report on Promising Practices.


 * Tellin' Stories was featured on the PBS To the Contrary program in July, 2002.

More suggestions for improvement
I'm copying and pasting this from someone else Mellen22 (talk) 19:46, 3 September 2011 (UTC) :

While it may seem like fact to you, stating the mission and scope of the organization as fact makes it come off as promotional to Wikipedians. So the first sentence could read something like "....with the stated mission to encourage understanding of social justice through schools." Just as an example.

Similarly, the bulleted list of programs makes it look more like a promotional website than an encyclopedia article. While bulleted lists have their place in Wikipedia, you may make your case better by making the Programming section more narrative.

It also always looks better to have full, complete references in the reference section. Not just links. If you have printed material that is not a website, that'd be even better. You will increase the level of respect for your sources if they are presented in a scholarly fashion. Wikipedians immediately look to the sources when judging the reliability of an article. (This doesn't mean links are bad, just make them look like real citations.) There is now a handy citation tool in the edit screen that makes this much easier than it once was.

I've had experience helping museums update their articles in a neutral fashion and have had success so far. I hope you find these notes helpful! Sorry that I don't have the time to make the changes myself.

Current state of article?
Hello, User:Mellen22 - Please take a look at the changes that have been made to the article since 2011. Do you feel that your concerns have been adequately addressed at this point? Thanks. Cgingold (talk) 01:49, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello Cgingold. I'd like to note that I worked on this page because of a request by people associated with TfC for volunteer assistance to upgrade the page (on http://www.sparked.com/home); I am not associated with this organization in any other way. At that time (2011) I made some edits and also compiled a list of suggestions from other volunteers. Other edits have been made since that time. The article now conforms much more closely with Wikipedia standards for format.  Today I made the summary a bit more neutral -- not better written, but more neutral, along with other more minor edits.  Despite substantial reformatting, the article as a whole still comes off a bit like advertizing, in my opinion because of the following:


 * the majority of the content is from the organization's web page,
 * there is little mention of founders, or other individuals who've contributed substantially to the organization,
 * and there is no mention of struggle, controversy, disagreement or even change of focus or direction.
 * There isn't a lot published about this organization, and especially about the internal workings of the organization, so it's a little difficult to require much in these three categories, but anything would help.


 * Also, the language of the article has some sentences of this type: organization performs complex_task to accomplish lofty_goal.
 * Sentences should be more like: organization performs specific_task to accomplish measurable_outcome.
 * Mellen22 (talk) 07:30, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for your amazingly speedy reply, Mellen22! I was contacted by an acquaintance who is part of TfC and wanted to know how the cleanup notices could be removed from the article. UNder the circumstances, I didn't feel comfortable making that call myself, even though I'm not directly connected with the org. I think your comments will be very helpful, so thanks again for you input. Cgingold (talk) 09:35, 25 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I removed the flags. Someone else may reinstate them. The article has come a long way in the last two years. Mellen22 (talk) 17:02, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

How's this notable?
The article still relies far too much on their own press. The WP:LEDE should clearly identify how the company is notable. Hopefully, the sources demonstrating that notability (and any similar sources) could then be used to identify topics worth noting. --Ronz (talk) 23:15, 11 July 2014 (UTC)