Mulder, Stephennie

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The past is never dead. It's not even pastNOT EVEN PASTSearch the site ...   Like 74TweetTeaching with WikipediaWhen Public History is done so well, we want to celebrate it! In Fall 2018, our colleaguein Art History, Dr. Stephennie Mulder,  had her students rewrite articles on Wikipedia tobe more accurate and based on up-to-date scholarship. To be honest, I’ve thought aboutdoing something like this in my classes, but I would never have done such a creative andthorough job. Now the instructors among us have a model and a roadmap we can alluse. And the rest of us can sit back and watch some great teaching unfold because Dr.Mulder recently recounted the process on Twitter. Enjoy! ~ Joan Neubergerby Dr. Stephennie Mulder Read on Twitter      This semester in my Arts of Islam survey, I decided to scrap the research paper andhave students collaborate to re-write @Wikipedia articles. It ended up better than I couldhave imagined & transformed how I think aboutteaching #StudentsOfIslamicArt #IslamicArt #MedievalTwitter      I was hesitant about shaking up a popular class that had worked well for years, butone statistic  nally convinced me: 90% of Wikipedia articles are written by men – andlargely by men from Euro-American contexts.Privacy  - TermsFemale scholars are marginalised on Wikipedia because it’s written by men | Victoria Leonard       The oft-maligned #Wikipedia is the now the world’s most frequently-consultedsource of information &  fth-most visited website. Because anyone can be an editor, it’son us to make it the best resource it can be. If you think Wikipedia is bad, look in themirror. Wikipedia is us.      So this assignment quickly took on a much deeper signi cance than a researchpaper. It required them to develop many of the same research and writing skills as aresearch paper, but it also came to have a strong #civics and #SocialJusticecomponent, and the students responded.     To emphasize the collaborative, real-world applicability of the assignment, I set it upas a partnership with a museum and another Islamic art class via my brilliantcolleagues  @lk_michelsen @hi_shangrila and @AlexDikaSegg @Rutgers_Newarkshangrilahawaii.org      The assignment asks them to imagine they’re hired as consultants for a majormuseum to improve the public’s knowledge on Islamic Art, in advance of an exhibition.Their task? To assess an article for the quality of its sources and content and thenresearch, write, and improve it.      I have almost 50 students enrolled in the class, so I made the assignmentcollaborative and divided the class into 15 groups of 3-4 students. I thenpreselected #IslamicArt articles I knew were important but underdevelopedon #Wikipedia. They had 3 weeks to research & 3 to write.      The assignment was set up on @WikiEducation‘s terri c website. Students had tocomplete a training module/week. Through this and discussion in class they learnedhow to determine quality of sources, the value of peer review, and improved researchmethods. Wiki Education — Connecting Higher Ed and Wikipedia      In addition to the online training modules, @WikiEducation mailed me hard-copypamphlets to give the students: one general one on Editing Wikipedia and another newone on editing Art History topics. These were super helpful.New Resource Helps Art History Students Improve Wikipedia      I also drew on @artandfeminism‘s amazing quick guides which are brilliant for edit-a-thons.      But on top of these crucial online resources, I wanted to highlight continuing value ofanalog sources so students could gain experiential knowledge of bene ts of both typesof sources. I pulled in our brilliant #librarians Becca Pad and Gina Bastone from the UTFine Arts Library @UTFAL and UT Libraries @utlibraries       Becca and I created a research guide for the assignment that pointed students toboth digital and hard-copy sources within @UTFAL and @utlibraries.      I also spent a day in the library with students, walking them through basic researchmethods. I thought this might be too basic, but the day walking them through thephysical library was inspired by a comment made by one of our brightest Honors ArtHistory undergraduates in a meeting of the UT Provost’s Libraries Task force (on which Icurrently serve):    “Many faculty and librarians don’t realize that it’s not that undergraduates don’t *want*to use the libraries, it’s that we are SCARED of the libraries.” She explained that manystudents no longer receive the basic training needed to know how to use the libraries. Sothey don’t.Here’s Eleanor Garstein’s and Dea Sula’s revamp of the Pyxis of Zamora      The UT Library system is one of the United States’ great research collections, but thevast majority of undergraduates test out of basic Intro to Rhetoric and Writing-typeclasses that used to train them in basic research methods. So the libraries just lookintimidating and ba ing.      Just getting them physically in the library was revelatory. They were astonished atthe range and quality of sources that did not turn up on a Google search. It really lit a  reunder them, sparked their curiosity and made them want to dive in. This was revelatoryfor me too!      We talked about what a privilege it is to have access to depth and reliable quality ofknowledge in a top research library. We talked about how access to knowledge controlsthe way we see the world and our place in it. Again and again, students spoke aboutfeeling empowered.Zain Tejani and Tarik Islam improving the article on Islamic Gardens by replacing some of the more subjectiveaspects of the pages on the Islamic gardens with entries on the surviving gardens and sensorial experience.They later found their edits reverted by another editor – a valuable lesson about how to work within Wikipedia’seditor community (they’re still in negotiations on the Talk page!)      Yesterday [December 12, 2018] we met for an upload party. I wasn’t sure how itwould go, but it turned out to be one of my favorite days as a teacher EVER. I am soproud of my students and of their hard work. I am amazed at how seriously they tookthe assignment and what a terri c job they did.      There were challenges: the sometimes-di cult collaborative aspect of a groupassignment, the fact that some topics had few sources, the challenge of learning towrite in a neutral, unbiased style. But they had something real on the line: an article outthere in the world.      And in the end, these smart students have now contributed 15 better-sourced, better-written articles to the most frequently-consulted body of knowledge in the world. Andthey’ve learned key research and writing skills that will be applicable in a range of  elds.      And of course, they’ve deepened their knowledge of #IslamicArt. Just listen to mystudent Gabrielle Walker speaking con dently about the complex history andhistoriography of Raqqa Ware, a type of medieval Islamic  neware pottery.      There is room for improving even important and signi cant topics on Wikipedia.Carla Bay, Sukaina Aziz (@SukainaAziz), and Yasmeen Amro (@TheYasmeenAmro), More from @stephenniem on TwitterStephennie Mulder@stephenniemAnd on Not Even Past, a feature on Dr. Mulder’s award-winning book: Carved in Stone:What Architecture Can Tell Us about the Sectarian History of IslamPosted January 7, 2019More Teachingmade major improvements to the article on Muqarnas, perhaps the most distinctiveform of Islamic architectural ornament:      In short, this assignment did all a traditional research paper does: deepeningknowledge, research, and writing skills – but it also left them feeling empowered to beactive contributors: shaping global knowledge and redressing imbalances that shape theway we see the world.      So if you’ve ever wanted to have students do a Wikipedia article writing project, Iwould encourage you to jump in and follow Wikipedia’s motto: #BeBold. Your studentswill learn, and you will all feel like you made the world just a tiny bit better place to be.      And super grateful to the fabulous @LaurenMacknight, our hardworking andincredibly on-it communications director @UT_AAH, for enthusiastically promoting ourproject on multiple platforms! You’re incredible. 🙂19th century 20th Century African American History american history Asia Asia & Middle East book review BrazilBritish Empire China Civil War Cold War Colonialism communism cultural history digital history Early Modern Europe Europe  lm gender history History of Science immigration India Islam Latin America Latin American History Mexico Not Even Past Public History race religion Russia slavery Texas Texas History Texas History Day Transnational Twentieth Century History United States US History USSR Womens History world history World War IINOT EVEN PAST is produced by The Department of History THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN  We are supported by the College of Liberal Arts And our READERSDONATE  CONTACT  All content © 2010-present NOT EVEN PAST and the authors, unless otherwise notedSign up to receive the monthly Not Even Past newsletterSUBSCRIBEYour email addressFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILMBLOG IHS & PUBLIC HISTORY TEXAS ABOUT

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