Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Ohio University/Writing and Rhetoric II, Writing in Wikipedia (2014 S2)/Course description

Welcome to Writing & Rhetoric II – Writing in Wikipedia. Rather than ban or ignore it, this course invites you to learn about and practice writing by observing, analyzing, and contributing to Wikipedia. The encyclopedia has a lot to teach us, it turns out, about research, writing, collaboration, genre, authorship, and digital rhetoric—the way new media forms influence texts, and the author/audience relationship. Yet for all it can teach us, and in spite of its success, Wikipedia is still a work in progress. This course will ask you to critique and update the encyclopedia’s coverage of a subject that we all have access to, if not immediate experience with: the representation of Appalachia, and its related issues and identities. In doing so, we’ll also be studying how the encyclopedia, in its attempt to be “universal,” often leaves out or fails to represent regional and local culture. Our practical goal for this aspect of the course is to improve the encyclopedia’s representation of Appalachia, its people, places, art, etc. But we’ll also “zoom out” to think about some broader implications for understanding identity, rhetoric, and writing. How, for instance, does mainstream media perpetuate negative stereotypes about certain identities and regional cultures? How are these stereotypes circulated and promoted? How might they be reversed or dealt with? Finally, how can participation in Wikipedia serve some of these goals? Let’s find out together. Matthewvetter (talk) 16:38, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

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