Writing to Share Knowledge

Reviewer: GM van de Water

Wikinews is a public wiki a website that allows any user to change, add or delete

medium for a classroom-newsroom project where students produce news features

content. It is written and edited collaboratively by a worldwide community of citizen

about their country of residence. The purpose of this project is to teach students

journalists as an alternative to official press agencies such as Reuters or Associated

summarising and prioritising skills in order to present a text that engages a global

Press. Anyone pro and tyro alike - can join the virtual newsroom and contribute

readership.

original reporting, interviews or synthesised news analyses. It is straightforward to

implement Wikinews in the classroom in that no HTML-coding or web design skills
are required. Getting published is as easy as pressing the Write an article link at the
top of the main page.

This classroom-newsroom project is best suited to upper-intermediate to advanced

students as Wikinews is intended to be an alternative to professional news providers.
Furthermore, it is a daunting prospect that students contributions may be altered or
deleted by unknown citizen journalists elsewhere in the world. Nonetheless, this

The site exposes learners to authentic texts as shown in Figure 1 below, which can be

does not need to be a reason to forgo public wikis. Getting used to multiple

used as models for analysis. However, there is a risk that the input becomes

evaluators . . . aids students in preparing for and understanding that there are often

uncomprehended background noise in that Wikinews publications unlike

multiple audiences and stakeholders involved in work in the real world (Eddy &

contrived texts - do not make language features prominent and provide no

Lawrence 2012, p. 263).

explanations on semantic and syntactic aspects of the texts. Therefore, Wikinews

projects require form-focussed preparatory lessons on how to write a news article.

References:
Wikinews provides an exciting opportunity to engage ELLs in an authentic, real-

Eddy, PL & Lawrence, A 2013, Wikis as Platforms for Authentic Assessment,

world task. Authenticity has a positive effect on students writing skills, in that they

Innovative Higher Education, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 253 265.

may become more thoughtful (in content and structure) if they . . . write for a real
audience (Godwin-Jones 2003, p. 13). The site is a suitable

Godwin-Jones, R 2003, Blogs and Wikis: Environments for On-line Collaboration,

Language Learning & Technology, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 12 16.

Fig. 1: This screenshot shows the main page of the Wikinews website where visitors can
browse content. The navigation panel on the left directs visitors to resources for
contributors which includes a research desk, content guide, style manual and collaboration
guidelines. Wikinews, accessed 31 March, URL: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page.