Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/University of New Hampshire/Native American Writers (2013 Q1)/Timeline

Week 1: INTRO TO NATIVE NEW ENGLAND & ZOTERO
T Mar 19           (#1) start researching your author. You either chose or were assigned one HERE. Start acquainting yourself with (a) that author’s writings; (b) her/his tribe, location, and culture; and (c) available sources. Between now and Friday, you need to gather at least FIVE reliable sources. Look at books [use WorldCat on Dimond library's "database" page for these, as well]; newspapers [which unfortunately need to be searched by state, at times]; and tribally-sponsored pages, not personal or commercial websites. Some incredibly gracious person has got you started here.

Th Mar 21         Class visit with Trace DeMeyer, journalist and editor from Pequot Times, poet, memoirist, publisher.

(#2) Weekly homework due by midnight Friday: start your research journal. Open a new post on our class blog and title it thus: AUTHOR NAME (Your name(s)). [If you are working in teams you should write one blog post together, but I should be able to see--in the edit history--that each team member has contributed to the post.] Structure the post thus:

(a) a short paragraph of author bio so far [at least what she writes and has published];

(b) short paragraph on the tribe [where are they? how big are they? federally recognized? does the author live in the community, or elsewhere?].

(c) list your minimum five reliable sources (to save time, you can drag and drop directly from my Zotero library, linked above; they show you how, here)

Week 2: ABENAKI; INTRO TO WIKIPEDIA
T Mar 27           Wikipedia workshop in class. Before class you need to read Wikipedia’s Intro, and their guide to getting started. Expect a quiz. You don’t have to memorize every bit of the style manual, but you should definitely read the sections titled “About Wikipedia” and “Overviews,” so you understand who writes Wikipedia, how it gets edited, and what its basic principles and philosophies are. Be able to define basic terms including “editor,” “wiki,” “open source,” “crowdsourced,” “sockpuppet,” “edit wars,” and “talk page.”

Th Mar 29         Visit in class with Paul and Denise Pouliot, Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook-Abenaki People, Sagamo and authors of the tribal newsletters. You have no assigned reading today, so (#3) start reading your author’s poetry, fiction, journalism or other writing.

(#4) Weekly homework due by midnight Friday: add to your blog journal. Continue refining the essay portion and source list. In addition: (a) Add a “representative” text from your author (a poem, short essay, or short passage from a fictional or nonfiction work); and (b) edit our Google map to make sure your author appears in the right place, clearly marked. If you’re working in a team you need to let me know who did what portions of this assignment.

Week 3: WAMPANOAG; EDITING IN WIKIPEDIA
T Apr 2      Wikipedia workshop in class. Before class, look at the Wikipedia checklist, and make sure you watch this screencast. If you feel ready you can try uploading and saving your article; if not, give it a test-run in your “sandbox.” I will be tracking your usernames to make sure this is working for you.

Th Apr 4       Wikipedia workshop in class cont'd.

(#5) Homework: your Wikipedia article needs to be ready to go (=you have posted your sandbox link to my talk page as an indication that you’re finished) no later than midnight on SUNDAY. Review the criteria for making an article stick.

Week 4: CLASS PRESENTATIONS/WORKING WITH CONSULTANTS
As soon as your Wikipedia article is live and “sticking,” send the link to your author for feedback. This may involve some wait time, so once you’ve done that, start reading (and editing) each other’s essays [search the author names listed below, on the next two weeks of the syllabus]. By the end of this week you need to have made at least half a dozen edits within Wikipedia, which I’ll be able to track through your username. In class, meanwhile, you’re going to be presenting your authors [10 min per presentation: a quick overview of who and where your author is, followed by a reading of a sample text]

T Apr 9           Aroostook Indian, Vera Francis, Mihku Paul, Donna Loring, Charles Norman Shay

Th Apr 11       Cowasuck Band, Carol Bachofner, Suzanne Rancourt, Donna Caruso, Alice Azure

(#6) Homework due by midnight Friday: write a brief (500 words) blog post describing your editing experience in Wikipedia (both what you did, and what you got); and tell us briefly how your communication with your writer has been going, if at all.[PS--there's extra credit here if your account is well-written and detailed enough that a colleague and I can publish it in a forthcoming essay about education and Wikipedia]

Week 5:CLASS PRESENTATIONS cont’d
T Apr 16 Narragansett Dawn (Princess Red Wing), John Christian Hopkins, Loren Spears, Dawn Dove, Trace DeMeyer

Th Apr 18 Larry Spotted Crow Mann, Stephanie Fielding, Melissa Zobel, Joan Avant, Linda Coombs, Molly Spotted Elk

(#6) Homework due by midnight Friday: Rewrite your original blog post on your author including your (now) PRIMARY research. In the case of living authors, that *might* mean any information you got from them via email and/or discussions of not-yet-published texts. In the case of historic newsletters, it will mean closer analysis of the texts at hand. You are shooting for a clear, readable, 1000-word introduction to this writer/piece of literature that you can then move over to our Omeka site in class next week.

week 13: OMEKA
T Apr 23 Hands-on Omeka workshop in class

Th Apr 25 Hands-on Omeka workshop in class

week 14: FINISHING TOUCHES
T Apr 30 troubleshooting

Th May 2 last day of class