Wikipedia: A Tool for Teaching (Skeptical) Research

My colleagues and I recently presented at the NJEdge Faculty Showcase at Georgian Court University about how to use Wikipedia as a tool for teaching skeptical research.  

Wikipedia is one form of social media, and often at the bull’s eye of “new media myopia” (Obar, 2012). When asked to do research, Wikipedia is usually the first place students look. While we might want to teach students that Wikipedia is one place to start, it usually is not the one place where we want them to end. Therefore, incorporating Wikipedia into classroom instruction is a powerful way to teach students how to analyze the sources they use. This presentation will introduce educators to possible ways Wikipedia can be utilized in the classroom as a teaching and learning tool.

While most faculty and academics disapprove of using Wikipedia in the classroom for research, Parker and Chao (2007)  suggest that “Wikis [including Wikipedia] are one of many Web 2.0 components that can be used to enhance the learning process” in terms of collaborative learning, building research skills, and engaging students in the information literacy process.

Wikipedia says that their posts do not include original thought and are to be neutral. In other words, all information must be cited, and any uncited material is removed. Obar (2012) maintains that “studies have shown the Wikipedia is about as accurate as Britannica." Obar further suggests that there is still misunderstanding surrounding Wikipedia as not many academics understand the “distinction between Wikipedia as a tool for teaching and Wikipedia as a tool for research” (2012). Sadly, many educators ban Wikipedia  from the classroom as a platform for research rather than considering its possibilities as an effective teaching tool for both research and information literacy.

Most students, regardless of their technology background, have not successfully used wikis in the classroom. By reviewing Wikipedia best practices, educators might understand the value of incorporating this wiki into collaborative assignments or improving students’ understanding of information literacy. In Robert Cummings' (2013) suggests in his article "Are We Ready to Use Wikipedia to Teach Writing," some insights when using Wikipedia as a teaching tool:

• Don’t have to use Wikipedia as a reference source; use it to bring authentic, immediate audience for student writing.
• Wikipedia assignments offer the chance to consider student writers' responsibilities in topic selection.
• Use Wikipedia as an opportunity to teach critical thinking.
• Use Wikipedia to teach the importance of credibility and clarity in writing.

(Cummings is also the author of  Lazy Virtues: Teaching Writing in the Age of Wikipedia.)

There is, though, a difference between using technology to “supplement traditional methods of teaching, and using it ‘to create opportunities for new objectives that may not be possible without them’” (Benson qtd in Konieczny, 2007). Wikis, including Wikipedia, might reshape social learning behaviors in higher education, and it is “vital we use this technology, which has the potential to revolutionize the world of teaching and learning” (Jaffe qtd in Konieczny, 2007).

We are interested in hearing your thoughts. Would you use Wikipedia to teach research skills? Why? Why not? 

Would you use Wikipedia to teaching writing? Why? Why not? 

References:

Cummings, R. (February 25, 2013). Are we ready to use wikipedia to teach writing? Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/03/12/cummings

Parker, K.R. & Chao, J.T. (2007). Wiki as a teaching tool. Interdisciplinary

Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects 3. Retrieved from

www.ijklo.org/Volume3/IJKLOv3p057-072Parker284.pdf.

Konieczny, P. (January 2007. Wikis and wikipedia as a teaching tool. Retrieved from

http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_07/article02.htm.

Obar, J. (September 20, 2012). Why wikipedia does belong in the classroom. Retrieved from http://readwrite.com/2012/09/20/why-wikipedia-does-belong-in-the-classroom

If you are interested in reading more, check out:

 Lazy Virtues: Teaching Writing in the Age of Wikipedia

Wikimedia Outreach

Wikipedia Education Program

Wikipediain the Classroom: Tips for Effective Use 

Wikipedia in the Classroom: Consensus Among Educators?

9 Tools For Using Wikipedia in the Classroom

National Translation Month: Four translations from the Russian by Alex Cigale

Alex Cigale translates for NTM

We had a blast during National Translation Month! Here are the parting shots: four very short poems by lesser known Russian Silver Age Futurists poets (Kamensky, Severyanin, Aseev, and Gnedov) translated by Alex Cigale. 2013 marks the centennial of the Russian Futurist movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_futurism,  a phenomenon about which Alex Cigale writes more extensively in em review: http://www.em-review.com/portfolio_issue1.html.

And remember: until next year, read, write, and share your favorite translated poems.

Warm regards,

—Claudia Serea

VASILY KAMENSKY (1884-1961)

In the Rathskeller

Stuffy. Filled with smoke. Bright voices

Of festively chattering guests.

With decadent music, boredom and insanity

Have madly twinned.... Damn it, over quick.

If only quicker this torture were relieved....

Life – is longing!

Just sing....

Dim, desiccated, disheveled faces

Burning in waves of tobacco smoke.

Laughing loudly wrapped in longing,

Everyone joyfully blabbering, all

About one thing, like the cursed, the blind:

Life – is longing!

Just sing....

Women’s leaden, depraved caresses,

Grief distorting their expressions,

Drunken tears and cheap makeup,

Truth painted on their deceitful lips.

Swirling whirlwind of a fiery dance.

Life – is longing!

Just sing....

[1908]

IGOR' SEVERYANIN (1887-1941)

The Lady's Club

In my comfortable carriage, buoyed by its ellipsychic bearings,

I love to visit at golden midday the lady's club for tea time,

Where women so deliciously gossip about social trash and quarrels,

Where the foolish rightfully are unfoolish, the wise always stupid.

Oh all you fashionable subjects, from you my sorrow will unfurl.

Trembling lips with irony quiver like jelly made of wild strawberries.

"The natives look just like pineapples and pineapples resemble natives."

The Creole woman's quips are witty, recalling her exotic landscapes.

The mayor's wife begins yawning, leaning over the silent piano,

Looks out the window where fermenting July sensuously stumbles.

Around us fan the golden cobwebs, of spleen's lazy tribes a symbol.

Having thus compared myself, isn't this why I love the Lady's Club?

June 1912

NIKOLAI ASEEV (1889-1963)

Phantasmagoria

To N. S. Goncharova

With the lethargy of boulevard waltzes,

having stirred the anesthetized faces,

in the electric sky a millstone rocking,

the revolutions of the sun disk;

saddened manikins their heads nodding

at their secret keepers the night guards;

walls fainted as though collapsing clouds,

stars stood, bemoaning, stained-glass windows;

above its yearning and lonely stony body,

having streak-pierced the earth's axis,

as a throughway without any off-ramps,

oblivion rattled with its cloud-cover;

beneath the horse-whips of swaying weather

stiffened the Fahrenheit sign's pale figure,

and the same demented melody was unraveled

by the improvising flute of midnight.

1913

VASILISK GNEDOV (1890-1978)

Roadside reverie

Rhapsode

Hey! oak – whitely – whitely

The titanous overlordy of Heaven –

The bush of pondering-flutey

With overflowed ringing you rollick....

Leafting speckled like Dove feathers –

Sky splashed into rinse of leafs....

Hey! Oak-whiting, rustings-oaks,

Oak-limber rust-speckled flutter

Oak-writhing branchlings-ringer....

Hey! oak – whitely – whitely

The bush of roadside flutings.

1913

Alex Cigale's poems have appeared in Colorado, Green Mountains, and St. Petersburg reviews, in Gargoyle, Hanging Loose, Many Mountains Moving, Redactions, Tar River, and 32 Poems, and online in Drunken Boat, H_ngm_n, and McSweeney's. His translations from the Russian can be found in Crossing Centuries: the New Generation in Russian Poetry, Brooklyn Rail In Translation, Modern Poetry in Translation 3/13 Transplants, and PEN America 12 Correspondences. A monthly column of his translations of Russian Silver Age poets and an anthology of Silver Age miniature poems are on-line at Danse Macabre and OffCourse, respectively. He was born in Chernovsty, Ukraine and lives in New York City.

Link: http://www.em-review.com/portfolio_issue1.html

Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet whose poems and translations have appeared in 5 a.m., Meridian, Harpur Palate, Word Riot, The Red Wheelbarrow, Green Mountains Review, and many others. A two-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of Angels & Beasts (Phoenicia Publishing, Canada) and The System (Cold Hub Press, New Zealand). More at http://cserea.tumblr.com/.

National Translation Month: Three Bulgarian poets translated by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

I am tremendously thankful to Claudia Serea for inviting me to introduce my new translation and publishing project. I am editing and (largely) translating an anthology of contemporary Bulgarian poetry. It is a distinct honor and privilege to present the English-speaking readers with a selection of brilliant, engaging, innovative and new poems by living, currently active Bulgarian poets. The anthology is still a work-in-progress, and it is expected to be published in June/July 2013 by Accents Publishing. I love every poem in the book, but I wanted to share with the readers of The Writing Center three poems by three authors. These are Vanya Angelova, Krasimir Vardyev, and Petar Tchouhov. I hope you enjoy their work.

I also want to say that I think the idea of National Translation Month is fantastic and admirable. Great work and thank you for all you do!

—Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

ANOTHER AIR

the horse’s nostrils breathe.

And the moist eye

is half-shut on purpose

Since he knows,

why does he need to see?

Only the habit

still prevents him

from rattling his hoofs

towards the stars.

Author: Vanya Angelova

Translated by: Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

Vanya Angelova was born in 1953. She holds a master’s degree in slavic philology. She is the author of the poetry books "Rain of Chinese Drops" (2003) and "The Possible Travel Notes of the Body" (2010).

the good son K.,

it's closing time dad

turn off the luminaries

close the taps of the springs

drain the lakes

fold the trees wither the fruit

arm the alarm of the forbidden one

feed the animals

check the ropes of the dome

kiss the snake goodnight

turn off the source

energy is expensive

keep grandpa’s inheritance

draw the shutters roll down the blinds

don’t be late for mom’s supper

finally free at last

go to the harbor’s tavern

to make passes at the white Russian girls

like a good father

and I, the good son

am going to kill my brother

Author: Krasimir Vardyev

Translated from Bulgarian: Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

Krasimir Vardyev was born in 1978. He is the recipient of ten national literary awards. He is the author of two poetry books and is about to publish a third one. His poetry has never before been translated or published in English.

Only

Only her dress

is red

in the black-and-white photo

but this is not proof

of murder

it is not proof

of love

the night train passes

from one date to another

the door of the cabin opens

alone

Only his eyes

are blue

in the black-and-white photo

but this is not a sign of weakness

nor is it a sign

of life

the night train passes

from one darkness

to another

the door of the cabin closes

alone

Petar Tchouhov

Translated from Bulgarian: Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

Petar Tchouhov is the author of 11 books of poetry. He has received international recognition for his haiku. His work has been translated in many languages. He writes and performs music in several bands.

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer is the author of three poetry books, most recently The Porcupine of Mind (Broadstone Books, 2012). Her first poetry book, the bilingual The Air around the Butterfly (Fakel Express, 2009), won the 2010 Pencho’s Oak award, given annually to recognize literary contribution to contemporary Bulgarian culture. She hosts Accents – a radio show for literature, art and culture on WRFL, 88.1 FM, Lexington. In January 2010, Katerina launched Accents Publishing. Katerina is acting in the lead role in the independent feature film Diamond Days, to be released in 2013. Her text/audio blog featuring matters of writing and publishing can be found at http://katerinaklemer.com/ownaccent/

Accents Publishing:  http://www.accents-publishing.com/

Katerina’s website:  http://katerinaklemer.com/

Blog: http://katerinaklemer.com/ownaccent/

National Translation Month: The Vanishing Point That Whistles

In this installment, I’d like to focus on The Vanishing Point That Whistles, an Anthology of Contemporary Romanian Poetry published in 2011 by Talisman House Publishing. I was lucky enough to meet the writer, editor, and translator Paul Doru Mugur in the fall of 2007 at the launch of the previous poetry anthology he edited, Born in Utopia. I was pretty new to translations, but he made me the incredible offer to work with him on a new anthology. Four years later, the beautiful book was printed. 

Below is a fragment of Paul Doru Mugur’s introduction to the anthology that gives you a little background about Romania’s poetry scene. I also selected a few of my favorite poems in the book. Check out the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Vanishing-Point-That-Whistles/dp/1584980885.

And remember, in February and beyond: read, write, and share your favorite translated poems.

—Claudia Serea

Hyper-realism in Contemporary Romanian Poetry

The revolution of December 1989 brought the communist regime in Romania to a violent end. Everything changed after that. Historical hardships leave long and deep scars on people’s memories. Adorno, whose work is constantly cited regarding the way that various ideologies inform society and art, famously stated that writing a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric, and after such an experience it has become impossible to write poetry. Maintaining proportions, we may also say that, after the experience of communism in Romania, writing poetry and, in general, making art in a traditional format have turned increasingly difficult. New forms of expression, capable of reflecting not only the trauma of the past, but also the brutal transition to a new socio-economic reality, were sought. In addition, people grew suspicious of art, and accused it of lack of sincerity. This may explain why the poetic discourse of post-communist literary groups has begun to mimic reality to the point of blurring the borders between reality and life. In order to continue to be meaningful, poetry became hyper-real in Romania. The new forms of poetry amplified the banality and dreariness of everyday life to the point of making the real appear overwhelmingly flat, abject, super-boring, or horrible—in other words, excessively real, hyper-real.

From the start, a clarification is needed in order to avoid confusion. The meaning of hyper-reality in the texts of Baudrillard, Eco, and other cultural critics, and the meaning of Romanian hyper-reality are different. I am not referring either to hyper-reality as “the simulation of something which never really existed” (Jean Baudrillard) or as “the authentic fake” (Umberto Eco). Hyper-reality in the context of Romanian contemporary culture simply means the use of reality as a special effect.

This obsession with the real and the search for authenticity, the rejection of any form of compromise, and the contamination of esthetic by ethic are the main characteristics of contemporary Romanian poetry. A similar neo-realistic trend is present also in the recent Romanian theater and in the new wave of Romanian cinema.

ELENA VLĂDĂREANU

FAST FOOD

I watch a story on children in north korea

so many things are told about these children

I get informed about how many there are and how poor

in less than a minute I swallow

statistics grams of food per capita per child per month

a few-years-old kid walks barefoot

mud up to his neck

struggles to scoop some water with a plastic bag

don’t drink this, you can’t drink this

the reporter insists

you’ll get sick if you drink this filthy water

15 years ago a young woman in germany or great britain

was watching a story on children in romania

probably waiting as I am now

for the reporter to hand the child a drop of clean water

I wish I cared but I don’t

they’re so far away

they’re so fucking far away

I go round the sun in my erratic

yet aseptic safety

I tell myself I’m being manipulated and I click off the tv

translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Urmanov

IOAN ES. POP

WHEN I WAS A SMALL CHILD, I DREAMT OF BEING EVEN SMALLER

when i was a small child, i dreamt of being even smaller,

smaller than the table, smaller than the chair,

smaller than my father’s big boots.

no bigger than a potato is how i dreamt of myself.

because in spring they put po-

tatoes in the ground, and that’s it,

they never bother about them till autumn.

i dreamt of curling up in a hole among them,

sleeping sweetly in the dark,

turning to one side and the other all summer long,

then falling asleep once again.

in autumn i awaken still unrested,

unwashed like my brothers,

and when the spade thrusts near i leap out

and shout: stop digging, stop digging,

i’ll gladly come back home

if in spring you return me here.

so in spring i’m the first

they drop down into the hole.

in this way i could go on sleeping forever:

from the ground to the cellar, from the cellar to the ground,

year after year, undisturbed and forgotten.

translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu

SVETLANA CÂRSTEAN

[UNTITLED]

I’m a woman,

for a long time my body’s been floating

above an expanse of water, as white as moonlight,

indecent and silent.

I’m a cruel mother

who hugs her child

to the point of suffocation,

makes him one with herself

as once it had been,

when the big bellies were shady rooms to rest in,

were the good spaces along the street,

the rooms of unending vacations

without pain, without tears,

were the place in which no one gets separated from anyone else.

I’m a woman, often ugly.

Yesterday, my body was a paper boat

that I threw playfully on the surface of this water,

hoping it would carry me away.

Today, I’m the killer whale,

often beautiful,

waiting for the fisherman.

translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Claudia Serea

MIHAIL GĂLĂŢANU

I WAS SCHIZOPHRENIC. I LIVED (fragment)

Listen closely to me and don’t forget this:

Life is like AIDS,

catch it and you’re done for.

Once there’s life in you, you’re dead.

Listen to me.

Or better, don’t listen.

You’re already dead.

Why should you listen?

You’re dead.

Dead deep down to the marrow of your mother’s heart.

To the marrow of your life.

Life is exactly like AIDS, well said:

Once you’ve caught it, you can’t escape.

You can’t possibly,

rid yourself of it.

You’re trapped in a mousetrap.

Poisoned in an anthill.

Life is like AIDS, no denying it:

A fatal disease.

Fateful, mortal.

Once you’ve caught it,

angels are already using your mouth to sing.

translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Petru Iamandi

Paul Doru Mugur writes poetry, prose, essays, and literary and visual art criticism. The founder editor of the journal RESPIRO, he co-edited three anthologies of poetry: The Vanishing Point That Whistles, an Anthology of Contemporary Romanian Poetry published in 2011 by Talisman House, Locul Nimănui, Antologie de Poezie Americană Contemporană (Nobody’s Place, An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry), Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 2006, and Born in Utopia, An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Romanian Poetry, published by Talisman House in 2006.

Links:

http://www.respiro.org/ 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Vanishing-Point-That-Whistles/dp/1584980885

Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet whose poems and translations have appeared in 5 a.m., Meridian, Harpur Palate, Word Riot, The Red Wheelbarrow, Green Mountains Review, and many others. A two-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of Angels & Beasts (Phoenicia Publishing, Canada) and The System (Cold Hub Press, New Zealand). More at http://cserea.tumblr.com/.

National Translation Month: Akram Al-Katreb, translated by Osama Esber

Akram Al-Katreb, translated by Osama Esber

Today, I would like to share with you the poems of a Syrian poet and friend, Akram Alkatreb, in the lovely renditions by Osama Esber. Alkatreb’s poems are heartbreaking, full of love and longing for his native war-torn country, which he addresses as if it were a beautiful woman. Enjoy!

—Claudia Serea

The War’s Cries

Her mouth, which resembles war cries,

The men who fall while dawn in their mind

Is a bird with its two wings.

Damascus Road

I think, for example, of riding a taxi

and hiding in the mountain, near Ibn Arabi’s shrine.

The photographer wants to take a photo for you on Damascus’s road,

While your sons are waiting for you at John the Baptist’s house:

Here, where a complete life happens for an angel from the Middle Ages.

At that hour,

wounds are higher than the ground

And people grow wings.

The City of the Blind

Barefoot, I want to walk towards you,

unable to pay for a ride.

Cut from a tree that bends in front of your house,

I want to escape to the age of 21

Because I am unable to forget the odor of your body

In the city of the blind.

This Syrian Face

All what you can do to this Syrian face is to return it

To Cezanne’s water colors.

It is beautiful to be a bust, without doubt, immune to decay

And stars never leave the eyes,

To be a real inscription on an old Egyptian tablet.

A Lonely Tree

This man, who stands alive and resists submission,

Performs his historic dance and goes to weep with the fish.

What surrounds him:

Wounded people in front of houses,

a lonely tree.

Under the Sun of the Caucasus Mountains

I did not mean insult while you are dying for me

I wait for you, like a Circassian man, dreaming of a mat under the Caucasus sun;

Or an Armenian longing to Ararat Mountain from the window of a train at al-Hijaz station;

Or a Palestinian from Diaspora remembering his mother’s face very well;

Or a Kurd playing on the Bouzuki all God’s sad songs.

I Cannot Describe all this Blood

How can I become an adult while running towards you,

Drunk a little bit, unable to describe all this blood

Even in an evil life?

Your body, which is excessively written, has the strangeness of little tricks,

The aura of the Arabian nights.

The Fertile Crescent is a book whose cover is ripped.

A Spartan Wedding

Once, on the bridge of the Orontes River,

There, where horses bath as if they are going to a Spartan wedding,

many pieces of clothes hang on trees,

And boys swim in the green waters

With the pieces of bread, sweet, and laughter.

In the evening one of them will go on a sedan chair,

The color of his body reflects the river.

Each Day that passes

Each day that passes

Is a sigh in front of your closed door,

Your mouth, which trembles, fascinates the men,

who are going to war,

While all night I turn to your face

As if I were 17 years old.

The City of the Sun’s God

In the city of the sun’s god

Hands in the streets draw god, sad as the sons of villages,

who wait for clouds to come on the backs of the sheep.

The great mother sleeps bare-headed

Her body is the Eucharist

Her body, which suffers.

The Trees of God

The mobs have no sense of honor,

They do not know your name that the horses take to the wilderness,

While sons of violence captivate you, and spray perfume on you.

No one pays attention to the trees of God

that grow out of blood.

I want to dream of you slowly

Syria, I miss you a lot,

Put your long war in the shadow of a tree,

I want to dream of you slowly

Without shedding one tear.

The Odyssey

To Hazim al-Azmah

This summer

The polar star stumbles over mount Qassioun like pears.

The beautiful woman, who

Was sitting there on a chair, was unable

To make me forget the face of Damascus from

A distance, which is not so far,

While you read about invaders and Borges’s labyrinth

And the wandering saints.

Freedom

The bird, which we lost

On the edges of the prairies and cliffs.

Akram Alkatreb was born in 1966 in Salamiah, an ancient city near Hama, in western Syria. Salamiah is known in the Arab world as the "city of poets," because in almost every household there lives a poet or two. Alkatreb published four collections of poetry in Arabic and is a leading figure in what critics have called the “new wave” of Syrian poetry. Alkatreb has been living in United States since 2001.

Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet whose poems and translations have appeared in 5 a.m., Meridian, Harpur Palate, Word Riot, The Red Wheelbarrow, Green Mountains Review, and many others. A two-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of Angels & Beasts (Phoenicia Publishing, Canada) and The System (Cold Hub Press, New Zealand). More at http://cserea.tumblr.com/.