Using Wikipedia As A Model To Improve Paragraph Writing Skill: A collaborative writing activity

Abstract

Writing is an activity that is considered difficult for both native and non native speakers, therefore it is important for the teacher to provide a meaningful activity that will help students practice their writing skill more easily. Collaborative writing is one of the activities in writing process that is used to support students in order to get accustomed to peer reviewing their friends’ work as well as to learn from one another within the group. These are useful activities for students since during the writing process they tend to ask many things to the instructor which makes them to be less independent and insecure writers. By using Wikipedia which is an open encylopedia that is written collaborately by many writers, writing instruction can be done more interestingly and create a dynamic collaboration among students since they have to work in a group to write a certain topic based on their own choice. This study shows how students become more confident in developing their ideas and shows a great teamwork among them when they decide what topic to write and the sub topics for each member. Although they work in group, each student is responsible with their own parts at first. Since the assignment gives more freedom to all students in creating their Wikipedia, they become more creative in expressing their ideas with the help of all members in the group. This paper also presents how this collaborative assignment is conducted in order to maximize the students’ writing improvement. To conclude, this activity may give a writing instructor an alternative task that is useful for students and teacher as well.