Wikipedia:Training/core/Assignment prompts

Looking for ideas for a reflective essay assignment prompt? Pick and choose some of these issues for students to explore.

Write a short (2-5 page) reflective essay on your experiences using Wikipedia. Some of the questions you may choose to reflect upon include:
 * Reflective essay prompt


 * The ways in which writing for Wikipedia is different from writing regular papers for class.
 * What you learned about Wikipedia.
 * This could be a reflection on the technical or social aspects of editing. This could include a discussion of:
 * the Discussion page
 * the History page
 * the role of users
 * the role of collaboration.
 * Wikipedia's rules (which are slightly different than the rules of writing course papers)
 * Has your relationship to Wikipedia changed?
 * Do you see it differently?
 * Do you trust it more or less?
 * Did you learn new research methods in this course?
 * Did you put methods you already knew to use?
 * Was there more or less research involved for this Wikipedia entry then for your other writing assignments?
 * Did working on Wikipedia, with its insistence on citing every source, make it easier or harder to insure that your writing was well researched?
 * Will this assignment change the way you complete other writing, and if so, how?
 * How do you feel knowing that the words you wrote are likely to be one of the very top search results for the person you were writing about?
 * How do you feel knowing that these words could be modified or rewritten by the next person to come along (with the hope that they would be making them better)?


 * (source)

Courses engaging with Wikipedia from a focused theoretical perspective in topics such as knowledge production, rhetoric, politics of access, or authorship, can also find questions appropriate for higher-level and graduate courses in the "" handbook, available as a .pdf for any course, and available in print for courses supported by the Wiki Education Foundation in the USA and Canada.
 * Wikipedia and knowledge production