Those Wacky Plagiarists and Their Zany Antics

I've caught students plagiarizing on various occasions. I may have an unfair advantage, as I teach English Language Learners and actually read what they write. In advanced classes, that can be a lot. If I'm unlucky enough to be prepping them for the English Regents exam, it could be just about every minute we're together.

The reason for that is that a lot of my students have tutors, family members, boyfriends, girlfriends, and who knows who else to help them write. Sometimes the tutors think it's a good idea to do the homework for my students. But they either do it perfectly or make mistakes that are different from those my students make. I have to give them credit if they've matched my students' styles perfectly. That's not easy to do. In any case, I do virtually all writing in class because I'm tired of dealing with preposterous denials.

But ever since I started teaching, I've been surprised at the things kids could get away with. Once, when I was teaching a class of beginning ESL students, a girl showed me a report she'd written on Thomas Edison. It was clearly copied from a text. The comment the teacher had written was, "needs more pictures." You could view that as charitable, but more charitable still would be not wasting the student's time on tasks for which she was clearly not ready.

One of my students, on one of the first days she was in my class, brought me a bunch of extra credit reports, even though I hadn't asked for them. They were all about the delights of reading Shakespeare, and were all clearly written by some hack writer who needed to introduce a book about Shakespeare. "What's your favorite Shakespeare play?" I asked her. She looked at me as thought I'd just fallen from the sky. I asked her to please stop bringing me extra credit reports. 

Once, in the early days of the new English Regents, I was in a room with a bunch of people grading. This, of course, was before Merryl Tisch, in her infinite wisdom, determined we were all too crooked to grade students in our school. By that yardstick, every single grade except those on the Regents exam is invalid, but I digress. I found an issue, and brought it to an AP.

The AP angrily asked, "Well, who besides you would've noticed it?" Everyone, I'd hope, because in fact I'd identified two identical papers, right up to the spelling errors. It went to another AP, who decided that particular essay would get a zero, but the student would still pass. I told that AP it would really be a shame if the state found out about that. Of course I wouldn't call, but a lot of people knew about it and gee, wouldn't that be inconvenient? The AP decided to invalidate the papers, both copied from a handout some teacher had given.

I also once found an A paper one of my ELLs had written which I immediately recognized she did not write. When I pulled her out of a classroom to tell her, she asked, "You're not going to tell Ms. X.. are you?" I said no, I wouldn't, but I just wanted her to know it could be done. I told her I would've given her a zero, and that if I could recognize it, others could too. I didn't feel like ratting her out. I figure if she'd gotten away with it, well, she'd gotten away with it.

I know a lot of kids copy my homework, and unless it's a writing assignment, I won't catch a lot of it. But I also know that I give maybe ten minutes worth of homework a night, and any kid who needs to copy it is almost certainly going to fail any test I give. I try to tell them it's better to do the homework, but I'm not always successful. I wonder if kids who really can do the homework copy it. Are students so lazy that they'd copy homework even if they could easily do it themselves?

If you know the best way to deal with plagiarism, please let me know. I'm curious.

Plagiarize Your Eyes

I once had a young student from Russia, very bright, but not such a great writer. Being resourceful, she compensated for her lack of skill by simply copying things off the internet. Once, she brought me several extra credit papers, one about the joys of Shakespeare.  No, no, I told her, people often think I'm an idiot by virtue of being an English teacher, but I'm not as dumb as I look. Also, I've seen your writing before and this isn't it.

One day, I was in the office and a bunch of kids, for some reason, had a paper she'd gotten an A on. I read it and noted that it was an AP who'd given her the A. I looked up her class, knocked on the door, and pulled her out. I told her I knew she hadn't written this paper, if I could figure it out others could too, and that she could get in deep trouble for pulling such nonsense.  That didn't phase her at all.  She had but one thing to say:

"You aren't going to tell Ms. Clueless, are you?"

I told her no, I wasn't, but that if she ever handed another such thing to me, she would rue the day. I figured if she'd fooled Ms. Clueless, she deserved her victory. But unless you're a politician with big pockets, it's tough fooling all the people all the time.

A few years back a kid in my beginning ESL class showed me a paper she'd written about Thomas Edison.  It was clearly copied from some ancient bio, but she got a B with the comment, "It could use more pictures."  Another day I was sitting in the teachers' lounge and picked up a paper that clearly seemed the work of a hack article writer--but this one had numerous corrections on it by some overzealous pedagogue.  The corrections all seemed unnecessary to me, phrasing things differently but not absolutely better. I'd not have made a single correction, but gone to the computer to try to figure where it was filched from.

How common is plagiarism, and how many of us are guilty of tolerating it?

A Full Day

Imagine you're teaching a bunch of kids who barely speak English how to pass the English Regents exam. What can you do? You break it down to bare bones, try very hard to get them to understand and respond directly, and ask for four-paragraph compositions that marginally get the job done. You write sample compositions, and explain how you wrote them.

You make them write until their hands bleed, you do drafts and more drafts, you read everything, and they rewrite everything. By the end of the semester, you think you've made progress.

Then two kids scan compositions you wrote, type their names on them, and fully expect a good grade. They don't expect you'll remember having written them yourself. They don't expect you to notice that they're responding to a different question and this answer no longer applies. They don't expect you to remember that the written notes they've been making have nothing to do with what they submitted.

Another kid hands you a summary of Moby Dick that's clearly plagiarized and has nothing to do with the question. You ask the kid what certain words mean, and the kid has no idea. You ask how the kid managed to use the words while not knowing what they meant, and the kid looks up at the sky.

Then a kid brings you a doctor's note, explaining he had a headache and couldn't come to school yesterday. It's from an obgyn, and it carries the signatures of three other teachers, who clearly haven't looked at it closely.

Finally, one kid hands you the entire text of The Cask of Amontillado. As your head bangs loudly on the desk, you seriously begin to wonder whether the other boy's gynecologist can help you with the pain.

Principal's Welcome

Welcome back everyone. I know you're energized from your break and can't wait to get back to the classroom. I know I'm thrilled to be hear again...

You with your 2o,ooo dollar bonus!

That has nothing to do with how I feel. We had a wonderful year, the English Regents results were excellent, and while...

What about those forty-seven identical essays?

They were not identical.Some were four pages long, and others were five pages long. One was six pages long. They were consistently excellent. And bear in mind, they were all ESL students, many of whom had to use electronic dictionaries to understand the questions.

But they were word for word exactly the same. Even the misspellings were identical.

Really, Mr. Sandburg, who else but you would have even noticed?

Any competent teacher would have noticed. The State would have noticed.

But the State wasn't present. Really Mr. Sandburg, can't you focus on something positive? We're a C school, and next year, we will be a B school.

All you want is another 5 thousand bucks. We are a disgrace if we teach kids that plagiarism is acceptable.

Who says it's plagiarism? Our language teacher, Miss Dim, says that memorization is a very popular learning mode in her country. In fact, she had one of the boys from her country come up and reproduce the first two pages of the paper from memory. It was only then we decided to pass the students.

I can recite Anabel Lee right here and right now, but that doesn't make me Edgar Allen Poe.

That's not the point. These are kids. They have special needs. They require our understanding. Plus, Miss Wormwood claims she gave them that essay as a guide.

You got on the loudspeaker and said anyone whose cell phone rang would have their test voided. Yet here you are saying that 47 plagiarized papers, most doubtless copied from electronic dictionaries that store text, are acceptable.

That was my decision and I stand by it. Where's your school spirit, Mr. Sandburg? Didn't they do their "seat time?" Do you really want to imperil their graduation over a little misunderstanding like this? I regret we must cut this short so that Ms. Pewterschmidt can conduct "Right to Know."

Ms. Pewterschmidt?

Worth Another Look

One of the most remarkable education stories I've ever heard happened a few years back in Kansas City. I wasn't blogging at the time, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened again today, so I hope you won't mind my dredging it up.

A young science teacher named Christine Pelton assigned a class project. Parents and students signed an agreement that the project would be worth half the class grade.

Unfortunately for the kids in question, Ms. Pelton went and read the projects. Perhaps the kids had not anticipated this occurrence because it turned out that many of the papers were identical. Using software that identified it, Ms. Pelton determined that 28 of the kids had committed plagiarism. Under the terms of the signed agreement, she proceeded to fail the plagiarists.

But the kids were not happy. And their parents, who'd signed the agreements, had second thoughts. The local board determined the project was weighted too heavily and instructed Ms. Pelton to reduce its value from 50 to 30%.

When Ms. Pelton arrived the next day, the kids let her know who was boss.

"The students no longer listened to what I had to say," she said. "They knew if they didn't like anything in my classroom from here on out, they can just go to the school board and complain."

Ms. Pelton resigned. At the end of the semester, her principal resigned too.
Ms. Pelton

Everybody's Doing It

This morning's Times reviews a new book about plagiarism, who gets away with it, and why. I am continually amazed at how many teachers routinely accept plagiarized papers. I frequently see them hanging on bulletin boards.

I once had a very bright ESL student who happened to leave her paper in the office. She had received an A from her teacher, who happened to be the AP of social studies.

I read the paper, found out where the girl was, and called her out of her classroom. I told her I knew she didn't write the paper, and that if I knew, other teachers could figure it out too. She asked, frantically, "Are you going to tell Ms. Myopic?" I said no, but I wanted her to know that people could tell. I told her she could be expelled from college for doing that.

I was once reading English Regents exams, and noticed two clearly plagiarized papers which were identical even in spelling errors. When I brought them to my AP, she asked, "Who else but you would notice that?" Everybody, I hoped. The students' teacher defended them by saying that they'd actually copied from something she'd written on the board. I wondered whether the teacher had plagiarized it and added her poor spelling by habit.

One of the students had a language teacher who claimed that memorization was very important in her country, that students did it regularly, and that it was therefore OK. I recited a verse from Annabel Lee, and asked whether it would be OK for me to publish it.

No one responded. A group of administrators, including the principal, met and determined the best thing to do was ask the kids to come in. When they did, the kids were asked to rewrite the essay. The kid from the country where plagiarism was very important produced an entire paragraph from memory, and the administrators decided not to void his exam.

I walked down the hall, and demanded to see the principal. This was odd for me, because I'd not spoken to her in years. I went in, sat down, and she began praising me effusively. I was so smart, why wasn't I an administrator, we needed more teachers like me, blah blah blah, and I was halfway down the hall before I realized she'd handled me, snowed me, played me like a violin, and gotten me the hell out of her office before I'd even gotten a response.

I couldn't go back, as she'd more than earned the right to be rid of me. She was very, very smart and I'll always respect her for getting over on me like that (though I still don't agree with her at all).

But when kids start handling me like that, it'll be time to retire.