Wiki Project, Part II: Practice Wikis

As student groups developed ideas for their wiki sites, they workshopped the use of the wiki technology. To facilitate this process, I created a wiki site designated as our practice wiki. We used the site to analyze and reflect upon class readings, while consciously monitoring the technical moves necessary to create, edit, and link on the wiki.

A workshop like this one does not have to take place in a computer lab. In one section, enough students had laptops so that we were able to collaborate on the practice wiki from their small group circles. In another section, students took turns using my laptop. I logged in to the wiki and let students make edits from my computer. The classroom projector screen displayed the action, allowing us to hold a conversation about how to use the wiki features.

Here is the practice wiki from the section that used my computer: http://section66practicewiki.wikispaces.com/

One of the best results from the practice wiki workshops was the way the wiki allowed students to develop an understanding of difficult readings and plan for their project. In two in-class assignments, students had to create and publish new pages which were linked to the home page. In the first case, the students’ job was to explain the author Keith Grant-Davie’s opinions concerning rhetorical situations and their constituents: exigence, rhetors, audience, and constraints. In the second case, students identified an idea from a class reading that related to their wiki project. It was a very productive session as student groups searched the text, extracted quotes, discussed interpretations, published a wiki page, and learned to use the wiki technology.

Wiki Project, Part I

My classes used wiki technology to create writings that were both group collaborations and individual reflections. Wikis allow users to create, edit, and monitor changes from any computer. Distance collaboration offers additional opportunities for group work, altering the boundaries between in-class work and out-of-class engagements. Similarly, wikis can be used so that they alter the boundaries between group and individual work.

Here is the link to one of the wikis: http://section56group3.wikispaces.com/

Students created group wiki pages that defined a particular writing construct and explored its impact on student writing practices. We developed an understanding of constructs by reading and reacting to articles in our course textbook Writing about Writing: In our class, constructs are concepts about writing that appear natural but are in fact created by social and cultural practices. Students related with Joseph William’s article “Phenomenology of Error” because of their past experiences with grading. The majority of the students felt that error was the dominant practice in the evaluation of student writing. Several groups in each section chose to write about error. Other groups chose writing constructs such as plagiarism, perspective, and writing itself. In some cases it wasn’t clear that the students understood their “construct” when they made these decisions. The process of building the wiki shows how their ideas developed.

The wiki writings were organized through home pages that defined the construct and its effects on student writing practices. Individual students linked additional pages to key words featured on the home page. These individual pages featured student narratives about personal encounters with the writing construct. In most cases these narratives developed a stronger articulation of how the construct works. As they analyzed their experiences, students appeared to understand what is at stake for their own literacy. The home pages, however, demonstrated a clearer definitional statement.

What I really like about these writings is how the dialogic voices of the individual writings support the group authored home page. You can use the “History” function to monitor all changes to the wiki. The times logged for each edit show that the collaborative work was nearly complete before the individual pages were created. The group first came to understand the construct through collaboration which then allowed individuals to write more analytical reflections about their own literacy experiences. The final result displays a unified consensus supported by individual expressions.

A Public Service Announcement

This semester I decided to have students post all of their work publicly somewhere in the digital world. I had been moving in this direction for a couple of years, but spent much worry over issues of sensitivity, privacy, and exposure. The writing class can be a place of egos, a place where confidence and insecurity often settle into dullness. This tepid situation is worsened by students’ attempt to give the teachers what they “want.” Is the problem one of rhetors or one of audiences? I blame both sides.

The one-on-one relationship that characterizes the traditional scenario of individual submission to the individual grader is often seen by the student as a battle of wills or, literally, as “submission.” Students often submit the digital essay to the plagiarism-checking software or to the teacher’s personal dropbox. The student doesn’t simply turn in her writing; she turns it over to the power of a machine or another human. This mindset is far from the instructor’s goals for the writer or the course (I think). We often boast of empowering and authorizing student writers, but is that really the case when students turn it in, submit it, or drop it into a digital space that is hidden from their view? Or do students give in to preconceived notions of the teacher’s desires or the perceived criteria of past successes (e.g. what got them the grade)? I know that sometimes they just give up. Is that what we mean when we ask them to “submit” their papers?

I decided to answer these questions with an opportunity to publish. My hopes for this public participation in discourse are partly influenced by the theoretical writings about “publics” (see Michael Warner’s work for provocative discussion about multiple publics). The prevalence of digital literacy, from gaming to social media to texting, suggests that our students are hyper-aware of the ways their discourse exists in these various publics. To ask them to go public is to allow them to continue their practices. For many of us, students and teachers alike, awareness of our publics is second nature. If not, it can’t be hard to awaken.

Assignments can be publics. The collaborative space of a wiki site charts and maps the creative history of a public (click the “history” button to see this intriguing record). A blog post may reflect its public in more mysterious ways, but every time the author answers reader’s comments or views the blog stats, an awareness of the public emerges. I view these activities as awakenings. Students may find social and academic awareness through their writing that contrasts sharply to the act of submitting the writing to the teacher. What are the implications of this difference? That is a research question we need to pose to our students.