Three weeks ago: discovered student plagiarizing by copying synopses from Wikipedia instead of writing his own.
The next day: received apology from student by e-mail with admission of wrongdoing and plea for "a second chance."
The day after that: replied with acceptance of his apology and a note that we would discuss his actions further on his return from spring break. Requested that he complete his assignment for our next tutoring session so that we could begin examining his real writing in order to make improvements.
Yesterday: received new writing from student. Checked Wikipedia and found work was still copied nearly word for word -- but this time with a few phrases substituted.
WTF?
Let me be the first to say the design of the assignment is flawed -- if I were in control of the curriculum, I'd ask the kid to do much more than write synopses of the books he's reading, precisely to prevent this kind of easy textual pilfering, but my boss is pretty married to making him develop this summary-writing skill before any others.
But after the kid's use of his "second chance" to do that? And his total lack of remorse during our session yesterday? I'm starting to think his apology was rather disingenuous. You know, fool me once, etc.
So why do I feel guilty that I'm pissed about all this?
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4 months ago
5 comments:
I posted about that same thing sometime last year--about the sense of guilt. It seems that I remember coming to some kind of conclusion about the source of the guilt. Or maybe I didn't. I'll have to see if I can dig it out when I have time.
In the meantime, the monkey on your back isn't actually your monkey! Give it back to the student.
Like my metaphor?
((CT))
I have a friend who is a high school teacher, and this problem is pretty widespread, best I can tell. Not only using Google for synopses, but (clear) translations, wholesale copying of text from a variety of sources.
One chance to make amends? Sounds fair. More than that?
These are clear violations of honor codes, and it seems to me, the kid gets an F, and everything else he or she deserves.
You did what you could. The responsibility for these misdeeds is not yours. The kid was dumb by doing this one time. Really dumb repeating this behavior.
Consequences are necessary lessons, CT.
GEW -- I would *love* to offload this monkey on the student. I think I'm realizing the flaws in the system set up by my boss are blocking my effectiveness as a teacher. She reserves the privilege of contacting the student's parents, which she did the first time I caught the student plagiarizing, but we now see how little one phone call did. When I taught middle school, we were encouraged to be as in touch with our kids' families as needed to get parental support/reinforcement. I think I'm trying to muster the will to get into a tussle with my boss about letting me do the calling instead of relying on her to do it.
Oh, and I always enjoy your metaphors :)
BLW -- isn't it appalling how widespread this is? I know it too from my former teaching years (few, but well-seasoned with such incidents). That's what makes the design of an assignment so crucial. If it requires more student-generated opinion (supported by textual evidence), it at least begins to make cutting and pasting more difficult for kids. The problem I have now is that I have no consequences to levy since the assignments aren't graded and I can't take away privileges at home. That's up to his parents. I'm also in the bind where if I scare the student off (i.e., lose his business) because I'm being tough with him for his own good, my boss won't be happy. Ultimately, I think I have to act in the student's best interest, so I'll see about getting parental phone numbers from my boss -- or I'll push for a conference call so I can at least feel like I've pushed harder for people to do the right thing for this kid.
In my nine years of teaching private high school, nothing bothered me more than students' passing off other writing as their own especially I dedicated a good part of our writing curriculum to finding and citing sources. At one school, plagiarism resulted in automatic failure of the assignment; a second brought failure of the course; a third meant expulsion. At the second, outright copying brought little more than a slap on the wrist. Care to guess at which school plagiarism ran more rampant?
Kristen -- I suspect this kid got from his parents what was more like the policy at the second school you describe. What a difference true consequences can make, eh? It's frustrating to be stuck in a system that doesn't support teachers' efforts to teach.
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