In most English classes, inventing new verbs is reserved for confused students. However, in English 9 honors, wikified has become a universal verb penned by none other than the teacher herself. As last year’s classes dipped their feet in Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind, they also embarked on a research paper, however this paper was far from ordinary. A WRP, or wikified research paper, is made on wikispaces.com and allows students to link to resources within their papers, along with embedding various images and videos within their papers. This concept broadens the research paper from words on a piece of paper to a worldwide published work that includes interactive and supplementary elements which help define and support the student’s thesis. The starting points for these research papers is A Whole New Mind, and students may choose any concept from the book, whether it be a rebuttal of one of Pink’s main points, or a closer look into a detailed aspect of one of his arguments. The subjects of these papers range from video gaming to analyzing how empathy relates to medicine; they are as varied as the students who write them. Many students were inspired by this prompt to broaden their ideas beyond text, to include songs, pictures, videos, and interactive websites. In this way, the reader is able to be an active participant in the student’s ‘assignment’ and their work is not only ‘turned in’ to the teacher, but published to the world for others to critique and compliment. This knowledge of worldwide access to their papers has seemingly inspired students to give extra time and care to their papers, because they understand how many people could be reading them in the future. -Hannah L
Linked here are this year and last year’s wikified research papers from Moritz's and my English 9 Honors classes:
Smith 2: http://awnm09smith2.wikispaces.com/
Smith 5: http://awnm09smith5.wikispaces.com/
Last year's WRPs:
Smith 2: http://awnmsmith2.wikispaces.com/
Smith 5: http://awnmsmith5.wikispaces.com/
Mrs. Moritz's class WRP's:
Moritz 3: http://moritzs.wikispaces.com/AWNM+Per+3+09
Moritz 4: http://moritzs.wikispaces.com/AWNM+Per+4+09
Last year's WRP's:
Moritz 3: http://moritzs.wikispaces.com/AWNMMoritz3
Moritz 4: http://moritzs.wikispaces.com/AWNMMoritz4
So, we invite you to take a look at this year's WRP's, leave some constructive feedback, and maybe even reflect on the growth from last year's WRP to this year's. Happy reading!
1 comment:
Hello teachers,
MIT is running a nationwide vocab contest, and I think it may be of interest to your students. Actually, I have no idea if that is true since it is the end of the year and everyone seems to be dragging... But I thought I would try. :]
It is being hosted at Brainyflix.com. We are trying to get high schoolers to teach other SAT/ACT vocabulary, and they'll be using a feature we've built called Brainypics flashcards, which lets users pair a word to images and sentences of their making. Our end goal is to create a free resource online that can help high schoolers prep for the big test.
We'll be awarding prize money to the student and his/her school who has the "best" Brainypic as voted on by the public as well as iTunes to Finalists and top contributors. We will double the prizes if we can get students to make 4 unique Brainypics for each word on our word list. Due date for submissions is May 22. More details at http://brainyflix.com/main/contest_rules.
Whether or not you and your kids decide to get involved, I wish you the best of luck with the remainder of the semester.
Thanks!
Jack
Post a Comment