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Young Adult Reviews at Wikispaces

By RR | May 25, 2007

This is my first semester using a wiki in my English 311 (Teaching Literature to Adolescents) class. I have known about them for some time, but could never quite fit them into the curriculum. And like my GVSU colleague Sean Lancaster, I was never sure of their benefits. But this spring semester, I decided to try. For the first time in a long time, my students are not blogging, but working collaboratively on a Wikispace dedicated to young adult novels. Things are going well so far: students are working in small groups to post reviews of select young adult works. The reviews include images and hyperlinks to additional Web resources, including streaming audio and video and more.

What has been the most interesting so far, though, is our ongoing discussion of audience. As with blogging, we are realizing that the Web forces us to think about our potential readers: are we writing our reviews for adolescents who might stumble on our site? Our classmates? Other English language arts teachers? I also think the more permanent nature of the wiki (as opposed to the blog) makes these questions a bit more pressing. And collaborating with other writers complicates it all, of course, as individuals have different understandings of their readers.

All of this sounds obvious, perhaps, but I am again struck by how the read/write Web brings all of these questions to the forefront.

As for Wikispaces: so far, so good. I wish the pages could handle more than basic html, and a few more template choices would be nice, but not bad for a free space. I’ve heard Peanut Butter Wiki is good, too.

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