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We will critically examine the social and political conflicts that arise and the challenges that migration poses to the ways in which national membership is established, public policy towards migrants is made, and the nation is imagined using the metaphor of border and borderlands to explore these issues. Connecting the past to the present, we will explore current activism on indigenous sovereignty, migrant rights, and transnational labor.
Students will be assigned to work in groups of 2-3 persons to research, draft, edit, and publish a Wikipedia article on a topic, event, or contemporary/historical figure related to the content covered throughout the course. This will be a cumulative full term assignment that will be used in lieu of a final exam. Students will be allocated one 50 min. class period each week (discussion section - 13 in total) to work on assignments in their groups. Based on how well students manage in-class group work, additional group meetings may be necessary outside of class.
The overall goal of this project is to facilitate the application of knowledge and skills developed through course activities beyond the confines of the classroom and university. In short, students will become informed producers of knowledge, not just consumers.
Welcome to your Wikipedia project's course timeline. This page will guide you through the Wikipedia project for your course. Be sure to check with your instructor to see if there are other pages you should be following as well.
This page breaks down writing a Wikipedia article into a series of steps, or milestones. These steps include online trainings to help you get started on Wikipedia.
Your course has also been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. Check your Talk page for notes from them. You can also reach them through the "Get Help" button on this page.
To get started, please review the following handouts:
This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.
It's time to think critically about Wikipedia articles. You'll evaluate a Wikipedia article related to the course and leave suggestions for improving it on the article's Talk page.
Now that you're thinking about what makes a "good" Wikipedia article, consider some additional questions.
Familiarize yourself with editing Wikipedia by adding a citation to an article. There are two ways you can do this:
Choose an article. Read through it, thinking about ways to improve the language, such as fixing grammatical mistakes. Then, make the appropriate changes. You don’t need to contribute new information to the article.
Guidelines for Annotated Bibliography for Wikipedia
Objective: This is an opportunity to begin significant research on your Wikipedia interventions by finding those sources and material that will help you build the citations that will provide the documentation for your article.
Annotated Bibliography: In preparation for their Wikipedia contributions, students will present an annotated bibliography that includes at least 10 verifiable sources (15 for groups of 3) related to their topic. These can include journal articles, book chapters, newspaper accounts, and documentaries. Your annotations should include both broad general texts that provide the historical, geographic, or contextual framing for your Wiki article and more specific articles that focus directly on your topic. Each entry in the Annotated Bibliography should be about 2-3 sentences long and include a description of the source and about how you are going to use it in Wiki articles. In your annotated bibliography you can already begin paraphrasing those points that you want to make using this source. The assignment will be graded based on the range and quality of the sources cited, the strength and clarity of the writing, and the creativity and resourcefulness used to track down pertinent citations. Each topic will be different, but here are some things to consider:
Quality of Sources: The better your sources, the more credible your Wikipedia article. The highest quality sources are those that come from academic books and academic journals—academic books are published by University Presses, and academic articles are peer-reviewed. The next level would be popular books, magazines, and newspapers, and finally, the least reliable are web pages and blogs. Even here there are differences—the Human Rights Watch is a much better source for Human Rights than a random page by an unknown author. Always aim to use the highest quality of sources you can find.
Context: In considering what sort of things to include, think about the larger historical, cultural, or geographic context of your topic, these might not specifically mention your subject but can help provide the background to establish their significance or importance. For general context, academic books and academic journal articles are best to establish the grounding and significance of your topic. Sources will generally come from databases like J-Stor, Project MUSE, LexisNexis (for Law), and google scholar. But you will also need to seek out sources that directly speak about your topic, and for these, you may need to look harder, including in local newspapers, independent films, and other more obscure sources.
Grading Criteria for Annotated Bibliography
Things I will look for in sources:
· A wide range of appropriate sources: a mix of books, articles, newspapers
· The scholarly value of the sources used
· Sources that suggest that you have considered several aspects of the topic
· Extra consideration will be given to sources that are particularly unusual, creative, or difficult to find.
Things I will look for in annotations:
· How focused are they relative to your project?
· How well are you able to describe the relevance of the source to your project?
· How insightful is your understanding of the ideas presented?
· How effectively are the annotations written in terms of style and grammar?
Grading Grid
A (90-100) An excellent range of substantive and high-quality sources that work well together to illuminate a topic in compelling ways. The sources demonstrate advanced research skills, tenacity in seeking out obscure sources, and familiarity with assessing the value of diverse sources. The annotations are well written and illustrate an understanding of the significance of the relevant issues and how they might be applied to the final Wikipedia entry.
B (80-89) A good range of sources that work together to construct a solid research foundation for a topic. Overall the annotations demonstrate a clear understanding of the issues involved. This assignment may have benefited from one or more of the following: greater use of high quality sources; more specific and targeted sources that directly address your topic; more creativity or perseverance seeking out useful sources; greater clarity in presenting the larger relevant issues; greater attention to existing Wikipedia sources to avoid duplication; greater attention to grammar, punctuation and proofreading.
C (70-79) The assignment has an identifiable topic and demonstrates evidence of some independent research. This assignment would have benefited from one or more of the following: more high quality sources; more specific and targeted sources that directly address your topic; clearer focus on the larger context and relevance of your topic; more attention to connecting your annotations to your project; greater analysis or thought in terms of understanding the larger context; more attention to existing Wikipedia sources to avoid duplication; considerably greater attention to writing, grammar and proofreading.
D (60-70) The assignment does not evidence meaningful research or consideration of the issues. This assignment is lacking in several significant areas including quality of research; clarity of annotations; focus; grammar and proofreading.
F (59 or less) The minimum requirements of the assignment were not met.
You've picked a topic and found your sources. Now it's time to start writing.
Creating a new article?
Keep reading your sources, too, as you prepare to write the body of the article.
Resources: Editing Wikipedia pages 7–9
Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.
Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.
You probably have some feedback from other students and possibly other Wikipedians. It's time to work with that feedback to improve your article!
Once you've made improvements to your article based on peer review feedback, it's time to move your work to Wikipedia proper - the "mainspace."
Editing an existing article?
Creating a new article?
Do additional research and writing to make further improvements to your article, based on suggestions and your own critique.
Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards. Remember to contact your Wikipedia Expert at any time if you need further help!
Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.
See blackboard for details and upload instructions.
Our remaining MWF lecture meetings will feature the work you’ve done this semester in regard to the group Wikipedia article project. Presentations will begin this Monday, April 16. Every group must come prepared to present. I will call on groups at random. We will cover approximately 5 groups per day, except Friday April 20 since I’ll be out of town.
Details:
- all group members must be present (individual group members absent will not receive refit if they miss/don’t participate.
- presentations will be 7 min. of you speaking plus 2 extra minutes for Q&A
- presentations must address: 1) why you chose the topic; 2) who did what; 3) how topic relates to our class; and 4) what you learned
- your Wikipedia will be projected on the screen for you to discuss and for the class to view (hence make sure your article is published and accessible on Wikipedi)
Wikipedia Reflection Paper
(3-4 double-spaced pages, 12pt. font, 1-inch margins)
Use this prompt as a template for answering each question.
I. Individual Contributions & Learning Goals
Please describe your contribution to Wikipedia in detail. Specifically, explain in detail how your article (new or addition to existing) contributes to the collective knowledge of the public via the Wikipedia community. Also, describe how your article relates to the content, questions, discussions, themes, and debates surrounding the concept of the North American Borderlands.
Also discuss, what obstacles and challenges did this project present, and how did you go about addressing them? This is a place to outline any particular efforts that you made to research your topic, track down material, engage with other Wikipedia editors, etc.
What insights did you gain about Wikipedia, yourself, or the research process?
II. Collaboration, Self-Assessment:
Collaborating with others is an important aspect of this project. Please think about and rate your own contributions to collaboration, using a scale of 1-5 where 5 indicates exceptional contributions, and 1 indicates insufficient contributions.
Attendance and participation in group meetings:
Follow-through on tasks:
Contributing to collective ideas on group presentation (be specific):
Contributing to execution of group presentation, this can include preparing PowerPoint, compiling handouts, writing outline, etc.: Rate yourself and detail your contribution:
Additional contributions to others in or out of your group (editing, proofreading, translation, sharing materials, etc):
Contributing to collective ideas on Wikipedia article(s)(If you were the sole author of a page write N/A but mention any edits you might have made to the pages of other students if applicable):
Contributions to research efforts (be specific about any extra efforts in research):
III. Collaboration, Assessing Others:
Name those you collaborated with and rank their contributions (copy and paste the grading grid for each member of the group). Assign each fellow student a number 1-5 for each area. These are confidential assessments.
Name of Group Member:
Attendance and participation in group meetings:
Follow-through on tasks:
Contributing to collective ideas on group presentation (be specific):
Contributing to collective ideas on Wikipedia article(s) (be specific): (Write N/A if not applicable)
Contributions to research efforts (be specific about any extra efforts in research):
Contributing to execution of group presentation, this can include preparing PowerPoint, compiling handouts, writing outline, etc.: Rate each group member and detail their contribution:
Did you receive any assistance from another class member that you want to recognize?: