On wikis

One might think, given my aforementioned distaste for online classwork, that I would oppose the use of wikis in class. That is not the case. There’s a substantial difference between wikis and social media, which comes as a result of the different environments they represent. Wikis are powerful, innovative forms of writing which requires a real reimagination of what writing looks like, whereas social media only serves to strip our unconsidered conversation of its civility.

Wikis provide a potentially invaluable new medium that writers can, and ought to, become proficient with. They are also difficult to integrate into writing classes, and have not been as successful an experiment as they might be.

To start, wikis have several significant benefits to them which social media do not:

1. They’re truly interactive. You’re no longer posting your own ideas in response to another’s. Instead, you have to actually plan your writing along with your collaborators and execute as a group. That’s a skill set which is very common, and used frequently for professional reports and proposals; it is also one which is not significantly integrated into most older composition classes.
2. They’re working within a formal paradigm rather than an informal one.  There’s an expectation of more formal language and better reasoned, better supported arguments.
3. They truly embrace hypermedia. Pennington, in her article “The Impact of the Computer in Second-Language Writing,” talks about the virtue of hypermedia, where she describes nonlinear layering of informational, both textual and visual/auditory. That is a form of media which was not feasible until recently and which allows for more dynamic references than ever before. There are websites which make arguments with integrated games, which omit key details to be read if necessary on other pages, which offer extensive commentary alongside a source text, and which allow navigation in a multitude of directions. Those are genuinely valuable new genres which can allow for innovative forms of writing.
4. By their hypermedia nature, they might inspire more creativity; Pennington also points to (somewhat older) research in that direction. That experimentation might just be formal, but it is possible that by upending the structures in which writers work, they might be inspired to come up with new ideas that can be more effectively expressed now.

There are, however, drawbacks. Students rarely have enough time to meaningfully develop the quantity of text which makes wikis useful. Hypermedia helps readers categorize and navigate long and complex texts; if the entire content of a wiki is only several pages long, then there is little to be gained. Not only that, but the concept of hypermedia is still so new that few teachers are adequately prepared to teach it. Most hypermedia assignments end up looking a lot like traditional writing, but just on another platform.

One assignment which I have seen, and thought was great, required students to find an underdeveloped page on Wikipedia, research the topic in the academic literature, and rewrite the page. That writing is still collaborative, and it’s still composed in a form of hypermedia which is (ideally) integrated into the rest of the encyclopedia. It also puts students in the position of writing authentic materials that positively impact the broader community. One could also imagine full-class wiki projects, where everyone contributes to one knowledge-base. Or projects which ask students to amend or improve existing wikis (for instance, adding information about a store or location in their community).

The liberatory potential of the Internet is in its democratizing effect, where experience and social power are not prerequisites to participation. Yet the way we handle wikis – and, in fact, all writing assignments – often fails to realize that potential. Students deal with writing for inauthentic purposes by writing safe, formulaic responses, and when presented with inauthentic hypermedia projects they will fall back on their preëxisting writing training.