Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/California State University, Long Beach/Feminist Debates (Fall 2015)

WGSS 415 Feminist Debates is a senior-level class offered by the CSULB Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The course assumes that you are familiar and comfortable with themes and concepts that are central to feminist consciousness, and are ready to engage in more difficult theoretical reading and analysis. While this is a senior-level course, revisiting foundational questions and concepts is encouraged in order to clarify and refine our knowledge and perspective. The course provides you the space to take intellectual, personal, and political risks, to move outside of your comfort zone before planting deep stakes on a topic or issue, and to explore a topic from a variety of approaches.

Week 1: Introduction

 * Overview of the course
 * Introduction to how Wikipedia will be used in the course
 * Understanding Wikipedia as a community.

See Beachboard

Week 2: Online Training, Establishing Acount

 * Anatomy of Wikipedia articles, what makes a good article, how to distinguish between good and bad articles
 * Collaborating and engaging with the Wiki editing community
 * Basics of editing


 * Create an account/user page.
 * Add yourself to the Wikipedia Course Page.
 * Introduce yourself to another student in the class on their user talk page (practice editing skills).

Resources: Online Training for Students Handouts: ,

Complete quiz (Beachboard)

Week 3: Topics, Content
Discuss choosing and evaluating articles for your projects.

Handouts: Handouts:, Evaluating Wikipedia

Begin identifying articles that you would like to edit/contribute to. Add these to your &quot;Watch List.&quot;

Week 4: Content, Plagiarism
Discuss acceptable and unacceptable ways to contribute content on Wikipedia.

Handouts: and

See Beachboard


 * Add 1–2 sentences of new information to a relevant Wikipedia article.


 * Include a link to the appropriate source. (Refer to the handout on citation.)

Week 5: Types of Sources

 * Discuss articles that students contributed to (pre-writing 2); refine strategies for contributing, researching, assessing.
 * Review using Sandbox.


 * Option 1- New Article - Write a 3–4 paragraph summary version of your article—with citations—in your Wikipedia sandbox. OR
 * Option 2 - Improving an existing article - Create a detailed outline reflecting your proposed changes, and post this for community feedback on your talk page. Include a brief description of your plans on the article’s talk page for community comments.


 * Make sure to check back on the talk page often and engage with any responses.

Week 6: Continue using Sandbox to draft/edit
All students have started using sandbox to draft contributions.

See Beachboard

Week 7: Going Mainstream

 * We'll discuss moving your article out of your sandboxes and into Wikipedia's main space.
 * A general reminder: Don't panic if your contribution disappears, and don't try to force it back in.
 * Check to see if there is an explanation of the edit on the article's talk page. If not, (politely) ask why it was removed.
 * Contact your instructor or Wikipedia Content Expert and let them know.

Handout:

See Beachboard.

Week 8: Building articles

 * Demo uploading images and adding images to articles.
 * Share experiences and discuss problems.

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Resources: Illustrating Wikipedia and Evaluating Wikipedia


 * On the table at the bottom of this course page, add your username next to the articles that you are assigned to peer review. (You don’t need to start reviewing yet.)

Week 9: Final Pre-Write/Reflection 5

 * Expand your article into a complete first draft.
 * Complete Final Pre-Writing Assignment/Reflection (5) (Beachboard)

Week 10: Assign Peer Review Pairs

 * Peer review an article produced by two groups in the class. Leave suggestions on the article talk pages.
 * Copy-edit the articles and provide conceptual and feedback.

Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.

Week 11

 * Open discussion of the concepts of neutrality, media literacy, and the impact and limits of Wikipedia.


 * Make edits to your article based on peers’ feedback. If you disagree with a suggestion, use talk pages to politely discuss and come to a consensus on your edit.

Week 12

 * Continue discussing how the articles can be further improved. Come up with improvement goals for each article for next week.


 * Return to your classmates' articles and provide more suggestions for improvement. If there is a disagreement, suggest a compromise.
 * Do additional research and writing to make further improvements to your own article.

Week 13: Using community suggestions

 * Add final touches to your Wikipedia article.

Handout:

Week 14: Presentations and Portfolios
Students have finished all their work on Wikipedia that will be considered for grading. Prepare your presentation and portfolio. Submit portfolio on 12/9/15.