Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Rutgers University/Principles of Literary Study (Fall 2020)
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- Course name
- Principles of Literary Study
- Institution
- Rutgers University
- Instructor
- Reagan Lothes
- Wikipedia Expert
- Ian (Wiki Ed)
- Subject
- Books
- Course dates
- 2020-09-01 00:00:00 UTC – 2020-12-15 23:59:59 UTC
- Approximate number of student editors
- 20
The course serves as an introduction to the field of literary studies. It will familiarize you with disciplinary concepts and terminology and help you to close read literary texts and to place these texts into wider socio-political and historical contexts to gain a fuller understanding of their meaning and significance.
This specific section of the course focuses on what we'll be calling "activist texts," texts that sought to stage interventions into their historical moments. To engage with our own historical moment of social justice protest, the course asks how we might use the tools of literary study within the public and digital space of Wikipedia to stage our own intervention, how we might engage in knowledge production in ways that support equity and diversity.
More specifically, we will be working in groups to expand the stub-class article on the Charles Chesnutt novel, The Marrow of Tradition (1901). Based on the Wilmington, North Carolina coup d'etat, which has long been suppressed and distorted in the historical record, the novel asks its readers to confront the violent legacy of white supremacy in the U.S., a legacy that continues to play out in Black Lives Matter protests across the country. By expanding the article, we will be helping to bring the novel--and the important issues it addresses--more fully into public awareness.
Timeline
Week 5
- Course meetings
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- Thursday, 1 October 2020
- In class - Introduction to the Wikipedia assignment
Welcome to your Wikipedia assignment's course timeline. This page guides you through the steps you'll need to complete for your Wikipedia assignment, with links to training modules and your classmates' work spaces.
Your course has been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. You can reach them through the Get Help button at the top of this page.
Resources:
- Editing Wikipedia, pages 1–5
- Evaluating Wikipedia
- Assignment - Get started on Wikipedia
Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (Because of Wikipedia's technical restraints, you may receive a message that you cannot create an account. To resolve this, please try again off campus or the next day.)
- Milestones
This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.
- Assignment - Evaluate Wikipedia
- Assignment - Wikipedia Project
To access your Group Homepage on Canvas to complete this assignment, please see the Navigation Guide available through our Week 5 Module.
. . .
OVERVIEW
This week we begin our new unit: “The Novel: Historical Interventions.” For the next several weeks, we’ll be exploring Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition (1901) as we shift our focus in two new directions. First, we’ll be shifting genre, moving from drama to the novel, and second, we’ll be shifting from a focus on the internal workings of a text (how the various literary elements work together to generate meaning) to an examination of the role that “external” contexts can play in shaping both an author’s creation of a text and our interpretation of it. Indeed, by situating a text within its original contexts (whether these contexts are biographical, historical, socio-political, etc.), we can gain a fuller understanding of the ways in which the text—at the particular historical moment in which it was created—engaged the world beyond itself, or rather, the ways in which it integrated the outside world into its particular vision. And often we’ll find, as is the case especially with Chesnutt’s novel, that this vision has an interventionist bent. In other words, when we read what we might call “activist texts” in conversation with their precise historical moments, we discover the myriad ways in which texts stage interventions into the kinds of views, policies, practices, cultural norms, etc. that characterized the “status quo” of the time. And what’s more, we discover the ways in which these texts offer a critical lens through which to view not only their own historical moment, but also our own.
And Ta-nehisi Coates’ article, “The Case for Reparations” (2014), helps us to establish the wider historical framework within which we can discover how Chesnutt’s particular commentary, written over a hundred and twenty years ago, can arguably have as much to say about the period of the post-Reconstruction South as it does about now. In other words, we’ll be exploring, in part, what Chesnutt can tell us about why, over a hundred and fifty years after the end of the Civil War, there continues to be a widespread need to confirm that “Black Lives Matter.”
INSTRUCTIONS
To help construct this wider historical framework, work with your group members to review Coates’ article and to respond to the following questions. As you respond, be sure to bring in and analyze quotations to support your responses. To collaborate with your group members, remember to use marginal comments or to comment in this document itself, where you can reply to and edit each other’s responses. Please compose your responses using a different color font.
Group member font colors:
· [name]: [color font]
· [name]: [color font]
· [name]: [color font]
· [name]: [color font]
- Based on what you know of his argument in “The Case for Reparations,” how would Coates, who wrote his article six years ago, explain the new stage of Black Lives Matter protests initiated this past summer by the killing of George Floyd?
- What specific definition of his key term “reparations” does Coates arrive at by the end of his article? (Be sure to select at least 2 quotations--of no longer than 1-2 sentences each-- for this response.)
- Below is the description of our Wikipedia Project, as it’s described on our syllabus and our Wikiedu course page:
A prime example of this course theme of “activist texts” can be seen in the central project for the course, which will involve revising and extending a Wikipedia article for the novel we’ll be reading this semester, Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition (1901). Based on the Wilmington, North Carolina coup d'etat, which has long been suppressed and distorted in the historical record, the novel asks its readers to confront the violent legacy of white supremacy in the U.S., a legacy that continues to play out in Black Lives Matter protests across the country as we’ve seen this summer. By expanding the article, we will be helping to bring the novel—and the important issues it addresses—more fully into public awareness. In effect, then, to engage with our own historical moment of social justice protest, this project asks how we might use the tools of literary study within the public and digital space of Wikipedia to stage our own intervention, how we might engage in knowledge production in ways that support equity and diversity.
Based on this description, and your response for Question 2, how does our project fit within Coates’ notion of “reparations”? Be sure to integrate quotations (or parts of quotations) from Coates.
- Assignment - Wikipedia Project
To access your Group Homepage on Canvas to complete this assignment, please see the Navigation Guide available through our Week 5 Module.
. . .
For this second part of our “Getting Started” activity, we’ll be comparing the Wikipedia article for the novel we’ll be working with, Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition, with the article for another social-justice based novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
INSTRUCTIONS
1) CONTENT COMPARISON:
a) First read through the Wikipedia article for The Marrow of Tradition, and jot down some notes about what the article contains, what it’s sections are, etc. What (and how much) do we learn about the novel from the article? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marrow_of_Tradition
b) Then, browse through the article for To Kill a Mockingbird. How does it compare with the article for The Marrow of Tradition? What are their similarities and what are their differences? What strikes you when you look at the articles side-by-side? For example, what sections does To Kill a Mockingbird contain? How do these sections compare to the sections from The Marrow of Tradition? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird
2) RANKING COMPARISON:
a) Wikipedia ranks its articles according to two scales: a Quality Scale and Importance Scale. To determine where an article has been ranked on these scales, click on the “Talk” tab at the top of the article (next to “article”). Once you’ve read through the “talk” pages for both novels and recorded their rankings below, then consult this page, which explains the classifications more fully: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels/Assessment#Quality_scale
i) To Kill a Mockingbird:
(1) Into which category on the Quality Scale ' was the article for To Kill a Mockingbird placed? What does this ranking mean?
(2) Into which category on the Importance Scale ' was the article for To Kill a Mockingbird placed? What does this ranking mean?
ii) The Marrow of Tradition:
(1) Into which category on the Quality Scale ' was the article for The Marrow of Tradition placed? What does this ranking mean? How does this ranking compare to how To Kill a Mockingbird was ranked on this scale?
(2) Into what category on the Importance Scale ' was the article for To Kill a Mockingbird placed? What does this ranking mean? How does this ranking compare to how To Kill a Mockingbird was ranked on this scale?
iii) Based on what you’ve learned about the two novels from their respective articles--plus what we’ve learned about the historical context of The Marrow of Tradition from the Lafrance and Newkirk article and the Vox video, all within the larger framework of Coates’ account of the long legacy of slavery in the U.S.--what might account for why the articles are so different?
iv) What do the rankings of the articles tell us about how and where we should focus our attention for this project?
Week 6
- Course meetings
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- Tuesday, 6 October 2020 | Thursday, 8 October 2020
- Assignment - Group Work
To access your Group Homepage on Canvas to complete this assignment, please see the Navigation Guide available through our Week 6 Cheklist.
. . .
For this activity, we will be familiarizing ourselves with the official (written by Wikiedu) Wikipedia Article Rubric.
We will be using this rubric for Peer Review, once each group has finished drafting/revising their section, and I will also use it (in addition to your Group Work contributions) to determine your overall grade for the Wikipedia Project (which comprises 40% of your overall Course Grade).
OVERVIEW
As we learned when we compared the article for The Marrow of Tradition to the feature-class article for To Kill a Mockingbird in our "Getting Started" activity, Charles Chesnutt had high hopes for his historical novel, hoping that it would, in his words, "become lodged in the popular mind as the legitimate successor of Uncle Tom's Cabin. . . as depicting an era in our national history.[2] However, for reasons we will be exploring during the next several weeks, his novel didn't enjoy anything like the popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin, selling, in the end, only 3,726 copies. In contrast, in only the first year of its publication, 300,000 copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin "were sold in the United States" and "one million copies in Great Britain." [10]
Part of how we might envision our Project, then, is as an effort to restore Chesnutt's novel to our literary--as well as national--history, and to establish it firmly within the abolitionist tradition of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel.
INSTRUCTIONS
For your Discussion Board post, you will be assessing your group's section in both the feature-class article for Uncle Tom's Cabin and the stub-class article for The Marrow of Tradition. This will help give us a clearer sense of which rubric criteria each group needs to focus on most to best improve their section and, as a result, the overall article. (And it also gives us the opportunity to examine another model of what Wikipedia considers to be not only a complete article, but one that is "[p]rofessional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_assessment)
Please format your Discussion Board post based on the format offered below. Once you've posted, be sure to REPLY to your group member's posts, using the guidelines below--adapted from our Annotation Exercises--to help develop a revision strategy to move your group forward:
- In your reply, try to take your peers' assessments another step or two further by continuing the analysis, pointing out something related, referring to specific details or criteria from the Wikipedia Article Rubric. In other words, don't simply praise the writer for his or her comment (you can certainly do this, just don't only do this)--extend, complicate, refine, and/or redirect that comment.
1) Assess the article for Uncle Tom's Cabin
First, assess your section in Uncle Tom's Cabin, awarding points in each of the following rubric categories:
- Lead Section (the introductory section of the full article, beginning "Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel . . . ") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom%27s_Cabin
- Introductory sentence
- Summary
- Context
- Your Group's Section (assess both the "Major Characters" and "Other Characters" sections). For your assessments, refer to the criteria listed under "Article Body" on the rubric, offering both sections a combined score (no need to score them separately).
- Organization
- Content
- Balance
- Tone
- Images
- References
- Citations
- Choice of Sources
- Completeness
2) Assess the article for The Marrow of Tradition
Now assess your section in the article for The Marrow of Tradition. (Since there isn't a "Major and Minor Characters" section, assess the "Plot Summary" section instead.) Assess the section, awarding points in the following rubric categories:
- Lead Section (the introductory section of the full article, beginning "The Marrow of Tradition (1901) is a historical novel . . . ") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marrow_of_Tradition
- Introductory sentence
- Summary
- Context
- Your Group's Section (for our purposes, assess the "Plot Introduction" and "Plot Summary" sections of the main article, linked above). For your assessments, refer to the criteria listed under "Article Body" on the rubric, which are as follows:
- Organization
- Content
- Balance
- Tone
- Images
- References
- Citations
- Choice of Sources
- Completeness
3) Compare Your Assessments
Compare the overall rubric score you awarded Uncle Tom's Cabin (combining the scores for both the "Lead Section" and the "Article Body") with the combined score that you awarded The Marrow of Tradition.
Since we know that The Marrow of Tradition article is classified by Wikipedia as stub-class, we expect the article for Uncle Tom's Cabin, since it is feature-class, to be considerably more developed. As such, then, approach it as a model for the depth and coverage we want to strive for as we revise the article for The Marrow of Tradition.
4) Plot Out a Revision Strategy
Based on your assessments, jot down some ideas about how your group might best approach your assigned section of Chesnutt's novel. Which rubric criteria should you most focus on? What new information needs to be added to the section and which existing content needs to be revised, etc.? What can you take away from your comparison of the articles that might help your group move forward into the next stage of the project (which will be taking notes on what was important from the first reading of the novel (pp. 5-68) for your group's particular section; we will be doing this during class on Thursday)?
- In class - Discussion
- Guide(s) for writing articles in your topic area
Week 7
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 13 October 2020 | Thursday, 15 October 2020
- Assignment - Start drafting your contributions
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9
- Milestones
Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.
Week 8
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 20 October 2020 | Thursday, 22 October 2020
- Assignment - Peer review two articles
- In class - Discussion
- Milestones
Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.
- Assignment - Respond to your peer review
You probably have some feedback from other students and possibly other Wikipedians. Consider their suggestions, decide whether it makes your work more accurate and complete, and edit your draft to make those changes.
Resources:
- Editing Wikipedia, pages 12 and 14
- Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have any questions.
Week 9
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 27 October 2020 | Thursday, 29 October 2020
- Assignment - Continue improving your article
Now's the time to revisit your text and refine your work. You may do more research and find missing information; rewrite the lead section to represent all major points; reorganize the text to communicate the information better; or add images and other media.
- Assignment - Polish your work
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!
Week 10
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 3 November 2020 | Thursday, 5 November 2020
- Assignment - Final article
It's the final week to develop your article.
- Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
- Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Wikipedia Expert at any time!
- In class - In-class presentation
- Assignment - Reflective essay
- Milestones
Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.