My graduate course in composition theory have voted to take on the task of updating and revising the award-winning Rhetoric and Composition Wikibook. They're impressed with the project, and I'm looking forward to another semester with this fascinating and, I think, important work in the field.
However, I wanted to elicit some responses from knewsers about some possible approaches I could take this semester. My current plan is to recruit one or two of the students (11 total) to be "project managers," and divvy up the workload among the rest. I am also thinking of having them review the book and submit memos about its current status, what parts need work, and so on. I will grade them based on their self-evaluations, which will tell me what pages they worked on (as well as how long they spent outside the wiki in related tasks--i.e., planning or verbal discussion). This setup has served me well in the past, though I really want to push them to make more substantial changes than before. I'm thinking that since it's a comp theory course, they could work on the theoretical aspects.
I would any ideas you might have. I would also LOVE it if you would be somehow able to collaborate with me this semester, perhaps having your students also engaged somehow in the project. I can give you tips if you're interested in this.
Instructor's Manual
Hi Matt,
You might want to split your group into two teams, each with a lead project manager. One team could concentrate on writing instructors notes for given sections and/or pages. Advice on how to use an assignment, further reading on the pedagogical principles at play and so on.
The second group might either add new content or create an called --if you're teaching yourself-- where they write notes/ideas to writers who choose to consult the book outside of a classroom setting, a kind of _Writing Without Teachers_ approach.
As for reviews, if you had some of the students create a review questionnaire, the fun thing would be to ask students and instructors (graduate students, under graduate students, TAs, adjuncts) from other classes or other schools, to review the book. If the questionnaire included a combination of check boxes and short answer probes, it could be the basis --for students in other courses-- for a text analysis/review assignment. For example, students in another course might compare a chapter of R & C Wikibook to a corresponding chapter in the writing textbook they mght be using.
You could ask your students to run a review program -- developing a questionnaire, finding instructors and classes do the review, collecting the data, creating a review compendium, and then coming up with a revision plan/recommendations.
Note: if you want to do this, I can send you a sample review for one of the books we use at B/SM so your students have something to work from.
Nick Carbone
Great ideas
Hi, Nick! Thanks for the offer. I'd like to take you up on that offer for the sample review, that'd really help. I'm not sure if you have my email addy, but it's mattbarton.exe at gmail.
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Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.
A wiki is a collection of
A wiki is a collection of user-editable web document. If you think you can explain something better, you can change it.
Several of my freshmen seemed surprised when they learned that Wikipedia -- the most famous of all wikis -- is user-editable, and that anyone in the world can work on it. Wikipedia has a devoted community of amateur fact-checkers, so that any deliberate vandalism is quickly spotted and reversed. I tell my students that Wikipedia is an acceptable resource for an informal in-class oral presentation, or if they want to consult it to inform their written responses to assigned readings.
For cutting-edge topics that involve online culture, or that require the sorting out of huge amounts of information (such as ongoing coverage of natural disasters), Wikipedia is an excellent source. If the article has been edited recently, and has been edited numerous times, its probably a fairly good representation of the common understanding of a topic. From time to time I find inaccuracies and omissions, but I try to fix them.
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