Plagiarism Issues in High School

This past week was finals week for semester one which means all of the teachers at school are in a grading frenzy.  I’ve been slowly working on grading my 11th grade finals which consists of a very easy assignment which has four parts.  The basics are as follows: 

1. Title page with specific requirements including a quote from the literature they read.
2. Choose a time period, Puritan to the Realists, write one page on why this time period interests you, who are some of the authors and important titles, beliefs of the period.
3. Analyze a piece of literature that student chooses from that time period, write one page discussing the message and why that piece of literature is important to American literature.
4. Create a timeline of the first five time periods we studied, include authors, titles, an image

So, I’m working on grading these and have run into a serious issue, MAJOR Plagiarism.  Plagiarism that had my blood boiling.  My 11th graders either think I don’t read their work, or that I’m stupid and won’t notice when they copy and paste FULL essays or large chunks or copy and paste a plethora of random sentences that when compiled together, make absolutely no sense. I had one student who had a poorly written sentence that basically said that Washington Irving originally wanted to name “The Devil and Tom Walker” “The Devil and Homer Simpson” but changed his mind because he wanted to name it after a real person.  WHAT!@#@#  I know, weird and freaking sadly hilarious.

So, how to deal with so much severe plagiarism? First, I need proof it’s plagiarized so I type a sentence or two from the essays that seem too good into Google in quotes.  Google finds the site immediately. I then write the site or print it out and attach to the essay. I then decided to speak with my AP.

I love my AP and she truly believes in teaching kids rather than punishing, especially if the teachable is something that has not yet been addressed. And so, out of one and a third classes, I had already found 3 severely plagiarized essays.  Our solution is this.

I typed up a contract/letter to the students’ parents stating that they had plagiarized. I defined plagiarism. I quoted the district policy. I also quoted two local universities’ academic honesty policies and explain how important it is to learn this now. The contract explains that as their teacher, my job is to help them succeed and to teach them academic etiquette. I offer the chance to re-do the entire written portion of the assignment for no more than a 70% and require it to be signed by the parent.

Guess what I’ll be teaching the next couple weeks? Yes, what is plagiarism, how to avoid it, how to properly cite different sources. They will be taking notes, doing samples, etc. They will be bored, but you know what, I will NOT deal with this plagiarism stuff again. The next time, there will be no, “Oh, I thought I could put it in there if I changed a word or two”. No more excuses.