Using writing activities with real outcomes to improve students’ literacy skills – An academic summary

 “Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to academic writing” is an article written by Tardy (2010), an Assistant Professor who specializes in Writing, Rhetoric and Discourse. In her work, the author refers to the importance of academic literacy in a second language within a context of higher education. Furthermore, she explains how writing an article for publishing on Wikipedia as a teacher-guided task can help develop students’ skills in academic genres.

  

According to Tardy (2010), writing an article for publishing on the English-language version of Wikipedia familiarizes students with academic conventions regarding research, summaries and paraphrases, citing of sources, genre conventions and language use for a specific genre. In this way, students will be able to develop academic literacy skills by analysing sources, considering credibility and reliability, and avoiding plagiarism when writing their own piece.

During the pre-writing stage, students become acquainted with the kind of articles published on Wikipedia, focusing on layout and content. Therefore, patterns of organization, style, and the type of knowledge referred to are examined in detail. Once students have analysed samples of articles within the global website, they will be ready to select their topic.

The while-writing stage implies doing research on the selected topic and completing a Fact Sheet, where students decide whether they are going to paraphrase, summarize or quote the different pieces of information gathered. In addition to this, students are involved in the process of planning and organizing content and drafting their article. Special attention to quotations and references is required at this stage.

The after-writing stage consists of checking for spelling, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation mistakes and publishing the article. In certain cases, some students might need to go through a revision stage, to comply with the preliminary conditions of the website and eventually have their article published. The last step of the activity does not mean that students will forget about their production. Wikipedia is open for other people to edit or even delete the article. “Watching their article evolve over time can be an excellent learning experience” (Tardy, 2010, para. 39).

On balance, Tardy’s (2010) “approach to introducing the skills of academic writing for L2 (second language) writers” (para.5) through this Wikipedia-writing project engages students into a meaningful activity with a realistic outcome and it improves their academic literacy skills. By going through the process described, students are exposed to the procedures and techniques necessary to produce a successful piece of writing, namely research, selection of reliable sources, proper citing, and peer editing.

 

References

Tardy, C.M. (2010). Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to Academic Writing. English Teaching Forum, 1. Retrieved from http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/forum/archives/docs/10-48-1-c.pdf