Wikipedia:Canada Education Program/Courses/The Rhetoric of Digital and Interactive Media Environments (Rhonda McEwen)/Timeline

Assignment
Students will work in groups of 4 or 5 to collaborate on making substantive edits to an article of their choosing via one user's sandbox and talk page (with one user ultimately posting the edits as decided upon by the group). This is therefore an exercise in group writing/editing, writing for a particular genre (i.e. Wikipedia), thus demonstrating an understanding of the rhetorical approaches appropriate for the genre and medium (relevant to the themes of the course).

For our purposes, a "substantive edit" is defined as: writing or re-writing at least one section in the body of the chosen article or expanding upon a "stub". In either case, your group should introduce a new theme in the section you write, giving due regard for Wikipedia policies re: citation, notability, etc. A typical section would consist of at least one paragraph of a non-trivial length. How "rich" the content is will be considered heavily in evaluating assignments. This would ordinarily include text, links, references, etc. versus simply plain text, indicating a full appreciation for the dynamic character of writing for Wikipedia.

All students will indicate their group members via our course page (each user must create an account and will receive instruction in tutorials re: Wikipedia practices, etc.), and note their chosen article and which user's sandbox is being used as the space for this collaborative exercise.

Students should consult the Resources section of the course page for useful information on Wikipedia policies/culture, editing and content creation practices, and other relevant topics. The Getting Help tab provides information on the types of assistance available for this exercise.

Students will hand in to their tutorial leader hard copies of screenshots of the state of the chosen article "before" and "after" the edits, as well as a copy of the sandbox and relevant talk pages (i.e. the talk page for the sandbox and the chosen article). Only one group member should make this submission, and a cover page should be attached that indicates: the group name, the tutorial section, the topic, each group member's username, and each group member's real name and student number.

Students will receive a group grade that takes into account: the quality of the research and writing re: their contributions, the mechanics re: their contributions (e.g. spelling, grammar, etc.), and the group dynamics/process/understanding of the rhetorical approaches relevant to Wikipedia as demonstrated in talk page discussions. We may adjust individual grades if some group members are contributing to the process more than others. Please see below for further information about assessment.