Blatant plagiarism

[catnfiddle]

I have no tolerance for plagiarism as well, but I also want my students to have a chance at redemption. If the students learn from their mistake and actually turn in a replacement assignment that shows mastery of the material, they have learned twice. Unfortunately, a majority of the time I have caught plagiarists, they either choose to take the zero or they attempt to plagiarize again from another source. At least I've tried to get them to reform their ways.

[teachart]

How old are they?
There is a video called Everything is A Remix that I've been wanting to use for a lesson on mashing up art movements.

But it plays clips from Led Zeppelin and then shows how it was plagiarized from other artists, and explains the difference between covering a song, copying a song, and using a song as inspiration but adding your own twist. It might be interesting to use in a plagiarism lesson. I think you can google the video, it's not very long.

[Caesar753]

Originally Posted by TamaraF

I have no tolerance for cheating or stealing. Plagiarism is both. Even if their own words are in there somewhere, I still give a 0, with no chance to redo the assignment for marks. I also call home, and tell the admin.
We need to be tougher on plagiarism. We would NOT tolerate cheating or stealing from adults, in a work place, so why are we teaching our youth that it's okay?

This sort of policy is not always an option. In my school, we aren't allowed to use grades as a punitive measure for behavioral issues.

[HeartDrama]

My students are in the 8th grade. I've spoken with most of them. Some of them knew they were wrong, some were completely clueless. When I spoke with them, I explained what could happen if this was a high school or college class. Since it's 8th grade, they will all get the opportunity to resubmit the assignment. Tomorrow I will teach about plagiarism, at which point I will KNOW that they know the difference and the only way they could resubmit a plagiarized paper would be if I received an order from the principal.

[catnfiddle]

Here are a couple of cute YouTube videos on the subject so you can attempt to keep it light and non-accusatory, at least at first:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnO3AqRkQeU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snmJj03R7EA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NvA4hCOfjU

[a2z]

Remember, even after the discussion about plagiarism some students will be able to explain the concept but not apply it well. Kids with weak writing skills have learned to lean on other work to help get knowledge across. Since they must complete the assignment and poor quality content will result often in being accused of not trying hard enough, many will try to find ways to make it better. Some really don't know the extent one must change up something else to not have it plagiarized.

Kids that struggle with writing will often use other works as a basis because they just don't have the skills or confidence to do it right.

Of course, there are some that just don't want to do the work themselves, but that group, luckily for me, is very small.

[HeartDrama]

My warm up activity consists of 4 different scenarios of students plagiarizing that they'll all discuss within their groups. I tried to vary them up and even make some of them seem more acceptable.
One is a kid who quoted from websites but did use quotation marks, give credit, or list works cited. The second is a kid whose older sister let her use an old paper. The third kid forgot his assignment was due and copied something word for word at the last minute. The last scenario is a rich kid who paid for his paper to be written.

I'll let the kids talk about these situations in small groups then we'll talk about them as a whole class, at which point I'll define plagiarism. We've been citing evidence for the past 3 weeks, so I'll go more in depth with that. And then I'll wrap it up by letting them know the consequences within my classroom for plagiarism.

With all writing assignments I give, they have substantial time to work on them in class, so I can help them with content. Hopefully they'll get it, at least the ones who were clueless about what they did, of which there were 2. The others knew what they did was wrong, so they just need to know they'll be busted if they try it again.