Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Ohio Wesleyan University/Eighteenth-Century Literature in the Digital Age (Spring 2022)

Before Wikipedia, there was Diderot’s massive Encyclopédie. Long before social media, there were social networks of letter writers. And before Salon.com, the salons of Madame Necker and Madame Geoffrin.

In this course, students inhabit the drama of Enlightenment thought through digital projects. Our approach to studying the cultural age emphasizes participation over a nomenclatural approach. In addition to reading major authors and genres, we consider the cross-cultural friendships, artistic collaborations, and political, religious, and cultural affiliations of thinkers, writers, and artists -- both the privileged and the powerless. In seminar-format classes, students explore the relevance of 18th-century studies for understanding 21st-century problems, questions, and issues. Students read Catherine II, Voltaire, Diderot, Germaine de Staël, Lessing, Sterne, and Goethe, as they actively seek out under-represented participants and forms of participation, such as female virtuosity in the genre of letter writing.

Coursework requires students to apply digital tools in the humanities (such as Voyant-- a low barrier, computational text analysis and visualization platform) to eighteenth-century studies. Student “Encylopédistes” will move between the digitized 28-volume Encyclopédie and Wikipedia, as they participate in a Wiki Education project, researching and writing content for Wikipedia entries relating to under- and misrepresented authors, genres, objects, and concepts. Final project in the course is a public-facing, collaborative project to create a media-rich documentation/visualization of female participation and virtuosity in the genre of letter writing. Most work in the course will be public-facing.

Week 3
Welcome to your Wikipedia assignment's course timeline. This page guides you through the steps you'll need to complete for your Wikipedia assignment, with links to training modules and your classmates' work spaces.

Your course has been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. You can reach them through the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 1–5
 * Evaluating Wikipedia

Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (Because of Wikipedia's technical restraints, you may receive a message that you cannot create an account. To resolve this, please try again off campus or the next day.)

Begin a blog about your experiences. You can use discussion questions to frame your entries, or reflect on the research and writing process. Create at least one blog entry each week during the Wikipedia assignment.

This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.

Week 5
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 6

Week 6
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9

Art History

Biographies

Books

History

LGBT+ Studies

Women's Studies

Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

Week 7
Guiding framework

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

You probably have some feedback from other students and possibly other Wikipedians. Consider their suggestions, decide whether it makes your work more accurate and complete, and edit your draft to make those changes.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 12 and 14
 * Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have any questions.

Week 9
Now that you've improved your draft based on others' feedback, it's time to move your work live - to the &quot;mainspace.&quot;

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13

Week 10
Now's the time to revisit your text and refine your work. You may do more research and find missing information; rewrite the lead section to represent all major points; reorganize the text to communicate the information better; or add images and other media.

Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards. Remember to contact your Wikipedia Expert at any time if you need further help!

Week 11
It's the final week to develop your article.


 * Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
 * Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Wikipedia Expert at any time!

Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.