Composing for Online Audiences in the Composition Classroom: Experiments and Innovations with Wikipedia
In their 2007 webtext “Collaboration, Literacy, Authorship: Using Social Networking Tools to Engage the Wisdom of Teachers,” Joe Moxley and Ryan Meehan assert, among other claims, that online collaborative practices can empower students to practice writing for more tangible audiences. Among their many shared experiences with collaborative projects, Moxley and Meehan have experimented with writing assignments which encourage students to compose entries on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Such an assignment undoubtedly affords students new opportunities to connect with tangible online audiences but it also challenges the position of the encyclopedia in academic circles. For despite its ever-growing popularity and frequent use by students and professionals alike, Wikipedia continues to be victim to a significant amount of scorn within academia. Most students see the encyclopedia as a forbidden research database, having been steered away from using it by countless teachers and instructor in secondary and college English classes. Such vilification is ultimately significant of a tremendous loss, as the database offers pedagogical opportunities above and beyond the audience advantage identified by Moxley and Meehan. In particular, having students compose Wikipedia articles can result in growth in the following additional areas: writing styles and tones (Wikipedia standards require encyclopedic neutrality); source retrieval, evaluation and incorporation (Wikipedia’s strict adherence to copyright laws gives incorrect citation and documentation very real consequences); notability (subjects of Wikipedia articles must be deemed significant enough to remain online); and a general familiarity with wikis as an example of online discourses and genres. Because Wikipedia articles are subject to peer review by other editors, students can also gain real experience in accountability and publishing. A fuller understanding of these pedagogical advantages can only be acquired in the actual practice of the assignment, however. To this end, this presentation seeks to showcase my own efforts at designing a Wikipedia assignment for a Junior-level composition course as well as my own attempts to complete that assignment (in order to further imagine its possibilities and limitations). The very innovative nature of such a project will undoubtedly result in significant trial and error. My reflection and completion of the project, and the insightful feedback that might be gained from a conference-setting showcase, should—with any luck—lead to a more insightful and anticipatory assignment design, and fewer e-mails from the confused and overwhelmed composition students who attempt to navigate and complete the assignment.
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