Add Some Spice to Writing Class With Simple English Wikipedia
I would like now to follow up on my Simple English Wikipedia for ESL/EFL Students series with a few ideas for using Simple English Wikipedia in your writing class.
I am presuming that you have read my Simple English Wikipedia for ESL/EFL series. If you haven’t, you might want to check it out, particularly Part 3 and Part 4 that are concerned specifically with writing.
Why use Simple English Wikipedia?
One of the main reasons that I am so big on students writing for Simple English Wikipedia is that it gives the writing purpose. Telling students to write about “X” for next class is artificial and doesn’t reflect writing in the real world. Often there is no other way to teach, but, when you get the chance to give students the opportunity to produce a document that means something more than a C+ or B-, it is certainly worth a try.
The writing on Simple English Wikipedia is supposed to be simple. Students don’t need to feel like their writing is inadequate.
Simple English Wikipedia, like other Wikipedias, is a collaborative document. The article isn’t expected to be perfect the first time—the best articles are the product of thousands of edits. So a few grammatical errors really aren’t a big deal because they are the responsibility of the community, not any individual author. Of course, you want your students to strive for perfection. My point isn’t that they shouldn’t try, but that they shouldn’t feel unduly pressured.
Publishing an article in Simple English Wikipedia is also a more meaningful activity that students should be proud of.
Simple English Wikipedia is intended to be comprehensive and provides such a broad range of potential writing topics that students should almost certainly find something that they can contribute.
I don’t know of any other writing activity that is both accessible to student-level writing, meaningful to the writers, and meaningful to readers as writing for Simple English Wikipedia.
Using Simple English Wikipedia in the classroom.
I am not teaching anymore so I haven’t tested any of these ideas in the classroom. I only intend this lesson plan as a starting point for thought and discussion.
Look at the best samples from Simple English Wikipedia.
- Teacher asks for students’ observations on structure.
- Class focusses on overall structure and opening paragraph.
- Students choose a subject they find interesting.
- It must be a subject with no pre-existing Simple English Wikipedia article.
Student writes the opening.
- Peer or teacher gives feedback.
- Student rewrites.
Students form groups with similar interests and choose one article to write in-depth.
- Students discuss sections to include in article,
- Compare with main Wikipedia article,
- Make final decision on which sections to include and their titles.
Students each draft one section and edit as a group.
Many of the Simple English Wikipedia articles are quite short so it wouldn’t be unusual to publish the introductory paragraphs that all students write.
Ideally, this lesson would be spread over several days to allow time more time for revision and research.
I will repeat myself and say that I haven’t tried this lesson, but I would love to hear how it works or how you would use it.