Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Connecticut/English 1010 Seminar in Academic Writing, the Purpose of Education (Spring 2019)

Course Overview:

The University of Connecticut’s First-Year Writing (FYW) seminars are characterized by collaborative, student-driven inquiry. As a general education course, FYW prepares students for future academic work by asking them to use writing to enter into and contribute to active academic conversations. The instructor in an FYW seminar provides a site and offers contexts with readings, central questions, and directed discussion for the development of this ongoing work. Through cycles of writing, feedback, and reflection, students pursue writing projects in which they select and define places where they might advance the class conversation. Writing projects in this course will be grounded in a semester-long inquiry of a fairly specific topic.

Inquiry:

This semester we will focus on the purpose of education for our course inquiry. The course will begin by examining a brief history about the formation of the college education system as we know it. From there, we will identify contemporary issues in higher education as a class, and use these topics as focal points for writing projects. We aim to move beyond traditional ideas about education to consider how some new medias are transforming how we learn, research, and write. You will experiment with these new medias by becoming a Wikipedia editor (aka Wikipedian) in the second unit, and creating and recording a podcast episode in the third and final unit.

Wikipedia Project:

For the Wikipedia Project, you can choose either to create a new Wikipedia article, or “improve” an existing one. In either case, the article should be on a topic related to the course theme, the Purpose of Education.

Successful projects will:

• Collect and curate a bibliography of at least 10 sources from which you will be working to edit and/or create your Wikipedia page. The majority of your sources should be peer- reviewed, although it may be appropriate to quote or cite from news articles, interviews, etc. You must cite from a minimum of 5 of your 10 sources.

• Enter into and engage in an existing conversation. By “conversation,” I mean both the existing, reliable sources you’ve curated from the UConn library, and the conversation happening among contributors on the “Talk” page of your article.

• Offer a thorough and rich context on your chosen topic. This will require bringing together many sources and voices. To do this well you will need to keep track of your source citations and to make connections between multiple sources. Additionally, the organization you impose on your sources will be key to creating a successful (i.e. readable and useful) article for others.

• You will also circulate your work by linking your article to others when appropriate. Additionally, you will be required to edit/suggest on at least two other students’ Wikipedia pages during the Peer Review process.

Week 6
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.)

This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.

Exercise
Evaluate an article

Thinking about sources and plagiarism

Exercise
Choose a topic

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 6

What's a content gap?

Exercise
Add a citation

Finalize your topic / Find your sources

Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have questions using the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9

Books

History

Linguistics

Political Science

Sociology

Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

Week 9
Guiding framework

Thinking about Wikipedia

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 10
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

Exercise
Add links to your article

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!

Guiding questions

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