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- Course name
- Syntax
- Institution
- Grinnell College
- Instructor
- Cynthia Hansen
- Wikipedia Expert
- Shalor (Wiki Ed)
- Subject
- Syntax
- Course dates
- 2018-08-30 00:00:00 UTC – 2018-12-22 23:59:59 UTC
- Approximate number of student editors
- 11
This course investigates the syntax of human language, or the portion of language knowledge that deals with the structure and word order of sentences. Students will explore the varying ways in which languages express grammatical relationships and concepts such as possession, tense and aspect, case, number agreement, passive voice, and question formation. We will look at the methods that the field of linguistics has for creating scientific models to explain human knowledge of language, and we will use these models to make predictions about the representation of language in the mind. We will take a critical approach, meaning that we will examine the problem of modeling language structure from a variety of different frameworks, comparing how the approaches succeed and fail at capturing different phenomena and discussing which models better account for the data. We will focus primarily on English, but also take into account a wide variety of languages from multiple language families.
Students will evaluate existing Wikipedia pages on grammatical concepts such as verb valence, case, and tense and aspect. They will also research and contribute to an entry for either a syntactic theory or a woman syntactitian.
Timeline
Week 1
- Course meetings
-
- Thursday, 30 August 2018
- In class - Introduction to the Wikipedia assignment
Welcome to your Wikipedia assignment's course timeline. This page guides you through the steps you'll need to complete for your Wikipedia assignment, with links to training modules and your classmates' work spaces.
Your course has been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. You can reach them through the Get Help button at the top of this page.
Resources:
- Editing Wikipedia, pages 1–5
- Evaluating Wikipedia
- Assignment - Get started on Wikipedia
Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (Because of Wikipedia's technical restraints, you may receive a message that you cannot create an account. To resolve this, please try again off campus or the next day.)
- Milestones
This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.
Week 2
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 4 September 2018 | Thursday, 6 September 2018
- In class - Discussion
Week 3
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 11 September 2018 | Thursday, 13 September 2018
- Assignment - Exercise
- In class - Discussion
- Guide(s) for writing articles in your topic area
Week 4
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 18 September 2018 | Thursday, 20 September 2018
Week 5
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 25 September 2018 | Thursday, 27 September 2018
- Assignment - Start drafting your contributions
Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have questions using the Get Help button at the top of this page.
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9
- Milestones
Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.
Week 6
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 2 October 2018 | Thursday, 4 October 2018
- Assignment - Peer review an article
- In class - Discussion
- Milestones
Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.
Week 7
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 9 October 2018 | Thursday, 11 October 2018
- Assignment - Respond to your peer review
You probably have some feedback from other students and possibly other Wikipedians. Consider their suggestions, decide whether it makes your work more accurate and complete, and edit your draft to make those changes.
Resources:
- Editing Wikipedia, pages 12 and 14
- Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have any questions.
Week 8
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 16 October 2018 | Thursday, 18 October 2018
- Assignment - Begin moving your work to Wikipedia
Now that you've improved your draft based on others' feedback, it's time to move your work live - to the "mainspace."
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13
Week 9
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 30 October 2018 | Thursday, 1 November 2018
- Assignment - Continue improving your article
Exercise
Now's the time to revisit your text and refine your work. You may do more research and find missing information; rewrite the lead section to represent all major points; reorganize the text to communicate the information better; or add images and other media.
Week 10
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 6 November 2018 | Thursday, 8 November 2018
- Assignment - Polish your work
Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards. Remember to contact your Wikipedia Expert at any time if you need further help!
Week 11
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 13 November 2018 | Thursday, 15 November 2018
- Assignment - Final article
It's the final week to develop your article.
- Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
- Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Wikipedia Expert at any time!
Week 12
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 27 November 2018 | Thursday, 29 November 2018
- In class - In-class presentation
- Milestones
Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.