Lesson Plan
Be the Authority: Wikipedia in the Classroom
After learning how to edit Wikipedia while a graduate student at Pratt Institute School of Information, I realized not only how powerful it is to add articles to Wikipedia, but just how much was missing from this resource. I developed this lesson plan for Nate Larson’s course Contemporary Directions in Photography for undergraduate Photography students at Maryland Institute College of Art.
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Workshop Description
Attendees will learn the basics of Wikipedia editing, including best practices, key policies, and navigating the biases of Wikipedia’s notability rules. If the workshop is followed in its entirety, attendees will experience active learning, making small edits to live articles in real time.
Details
Designed to be at least 5-7 hours (could span multiple sessions or workshops), but could be easily tailored to fit your needs.
Intended audience: Undergraduate and graduate students; general public.
Could be used in conjunction with the Wiki Education Dashboard, but not necessary, especially if not sponsored by an institution.
Designed to edit or add articles on Wikipedia, specifically relating to underrepresented groups.
Proposed Schedule (3 Sessions)
Session 1:
Introduction to Wikipedia — 45 minutes
1. Start with a Wikipedia on Paper activity: Originally developed by Margaret Smith (Head, Science Services, New York University):
Organize attendees into groups of 5-6.
Workshop leader passes out notecards with assigned topics on each card. Topics should be broad. For example, for an undergraduate Photography course, I used “Photography,” and “Performance Art.”
Set a timer to ~4 minutes. Have each group write out a definition for their topic as they think it would appear on Wikipedia.
At the end of ~4 minutes, each group passes their notecard to the next group (clockwise).
Groups can cross out and rewrite (but don’t erase) anything they think should be edited.
Once groups get their original notecard back, discuss how they feel about being edited.
2. Slide Presentation
3. Assign homework (if group is returning): Create a Wikipedia account. Doing so ahead of time is critical to group editing as Wikipedia will prevent new accounts if too many people in one location are attempting to create an account. Explain positives and negatives of using real names as usernames.
4. Optional: If using the Wiki Education Dashboard, have students enroll in the course as homework. Have them complete the suggested assignments in the course (e.g. Practice the Basics assignment and Critique an Article assignment).
Session 2:
Work day: Editing Wikipedia — 2-5 hours
All attendees login and begin adding content or citations for at least two articles. Workshop leader can ask for articles ahead of the session or keep track during, if desired.
Optional for advanced: Create one stub in Stub Creator that is reviewed by the workshop leader before submitted.
Session 3 or could be added to Session 2:
Review and Assess — ~30 minutes
Optional review and assessment of how the editing went. What were the challenges? Was there anything that surprised you?
Jennifer Ferretti leading “Be the Authority: Wikipedia in the Classroom,” at Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD. Photo by Nate Larson.
Getting Started Guide and Organization Tool
Whenever teaching groups how to edit Wikipedia, I make sure I have a Getting Started guide not only for myself to follow, but for whomever I’m teaching.
As mentioned above, you can choose to track which articles you’d like attendees to edit or create by using a simple spreadsheet. This helps direct people to particular articles in need, such as those about people of marginalized identities.