Week Five

It hit me right between the eyes.  I have to admit that I had never considered it before; at least not until I read my weekly assignment for our class.  But my classmates who are teaching grade school are experiencing plagiarism with their students, just as I am with my college students.  This week we had a reading within our Technology to teach literacy: a resource for k-8 teachers (Anderson, 2008) that had a first person narrative from an instructor about her experiences working with young students as she helped them with their writing. 

 

Now, writing papers in sixth grade on up - that made sense to me prior to this week.  But I had not really ever experienced with my own children or obviously myself, exploring, researching, writing, and possibly plagiarizing younger than that.  The challenges I face with my students, I cannot imagine the challenges with students a decade, two or three decades younger. 

However, would it be easier to get students of a younger age to practice more ethical behaviors because they have not become aware of the possibilities to bend the rules, shall we say?  And as an instructor of young students would I find it best to keep all writing assignments to in-class work.  Not that I am saying parents would do the work for their child; or not assist their child at all.  I am just wondering if I would find it best to work with the students in a laboratory environment at the school.  Possibly working with the students in this setting would help to in still the quality writing habits that we hope all students will possess as they successfully matriculate through the system. 

On the college level, I am always amazed when I am working with a student who will highlight entire passages from another person's document and turn it in as their own work without any recognition of any kind.  And usually, they at surprised, as if they had no idea that the two or three paragraphs were word for word, punctuation for punctuation identical to another person's writing; more often than not a published work.

I am a member of a social networking "group"  affiliated with an active student organization at the institution where I got my undergraduate degree.  The first week of this semester, I and I assume from the way it was sent, all members of the student organization, were sent an email promoting the sale of "plagiarism free", "cited to specifications", "completely error free", "on the topic of your choice" research papers, thesis, and/or dissertations.  The young lady who was promoting them is currently a student at the university.  And I am pretty confident that she was breaking a student code of conduct, IF she was really the one selling the papers.  However, I really think she was just an inside promoter for an outside company. 

I am sure that any and all persons who will read this blog will agree that they have heard of papers having being sold before.  I just had not had one promoted to me through my social network affiliation prior to this semester.  It truly makes me wonder what else is out there that I am not being exposed to that our students are doing and are working on to avoid actually writing their own papers.  If they would spend half as much time really doing the work as they spend trying to figure out how to get out of doing the work, wouldn't they create amazing things?!

There are days that I wonder what the world will be like when I am my grandmother's age.  (I don't think she would mind me telling you that she is 95).  What will people be reading?  Who will be doing the writing and who will be doing the "fact checking"?  How will education be shaped then?  Will every student from kindergarten on up be online learners? 

It is a big thought.  One I cannot answer today.  I am just still learning as I blog.

Reference:

Anderson, R., Grant, M., & Speck, B. (2008). Technology to teach literacy: a resource for k-8 teachers. (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education.