Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater

Today, I continued proofreading my student papers that I started on yesterday. Their assignment this week is “Basic Book Report.” Many of them are doing well, and several of them put a lot of initiative into their work. Others, however…

So far I’ve proofread five papers. Two of the five students blindly lifted a paragraph (one lifted a three-paragraph synopsis) directly from the Internet. Neither of them changed a single word. 

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
I'm sure she won't notice if I use that as an opening."

I was appalled. Did they think I wouldn’t notice the drastic change in their writing style? That I’m too old and technologically-challenged to copy-and-paste a phrase into Google? Or did they simply not think about it, just assuming that it was okay to pass off someone else’s words for their own?

My guess, one I got over my fury, is that they both got overwhelmed. It’s clear that writing doesn’t come naturally to either of them, and when I requested major additions to both of their papers, it’s not hard to see how the temptation to cheat would take over. It’s not an excuse, of course, but it helped me feel a measure of compassion toward them.

As a teacher, of course, it’s frustrating. It’s hard to find the balance between pushing your students and expecting too much of them. In the case of these two students, I feel the need to encourage them— they can both write well when they put a lot of effort into it. They are capable of doing this, just as I was capable of solving polynomial equations in high school even though I had to study for hours to even hope for a good score on my math test. Once, in middle school, my brother/math-study-companion/math-proficient-person left the room, and I dashed over to his page and tried to copy down his answers. He caught me before I could even take a glance, and then I drowned in guilt for… well, the rest of that school year.

Sometimes, stuff is just hard. Writing is something that comes naturally to me, but all I have to think of is mathematics or piano playing and I flinch. I managed to gain a reasonable level of proficiency in piano. I never mastered math. But after that day in middle school, I never cheated again.

I wrote both of my students a short, firm note which explained that copy-and-pasting is unacceptable. Then I let it go at that— I think it’s fair to give them one warning. Just one.

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