19 May 2025
10:00–11:15
Engaging students with a real audience in writing courses and authentic learning opportunities while letting them critically think about different literacies, knowledge creation, and AI concerns is a real challenge. After attending AMICAL’s professional development session on Wikipedia Education, I piloted a Wikipedia assignment as part of my Spring 2023-2024 WRI 102 (Advanced Academic Writing) course’s Research Essay and then redesigned my Fall 2024-2025 WRI 101 (Academic Writing) course’s Analysis Essay 1. Both involved editing Wikipedia articles students selected about underrepresented communities, cultures, and countries which needed development (stub, starter, or C class). Learners then used the Wikipedia work as a springboard for their Research Essay’s literature review or for the Analysis Essay which compared and contrasted the Wikipedia article with an AI generated argumentative essay, noting the different elements of the rhetorical situation in addition to strengths and weaknesses (including fact checking). For both students had to reflect on the experience.
Data from reflections, evaluations, and observations plus literature review resulted in takeaways on the benefits, challenges, lessons learnt, and recommendations for Wikipedia assignments. Learners felt accomplished/proud. It promoted writing and research skills, subject matter mastery, critical thinking, collaboration, teamwork, and digital literacy; increased awareness of the rhetorical situation; and empowered students to contribute to underrepresented subjects and write for a public audience. Challenges included student frustration with Wikipedia; the project’s demands; time-intensive training and interaction with editors; and concerns about Wikipedia’s role as an AI training data source and AI-generated content. Despite challenges, Wikipedia assignments remain valuable and can work for any course (e.g. students can edit physics articles for a physics course etc.). While not ideal for freshmen, it has the potential to work well for juniors and seniors. Given the time demand, it should be a major course assignment with class time dedicated to the training.