1. Give students this and two minutes to decide in groups or pairs if the kid below is guily of plagiarism:
My kid's sentence:2. Inform students that this is clearly plagiarism and ask them to determine an appropriate punishment in their groups.
He intentionally heightened the implausibility when the characters contradict each other a myriad of times making it even harder to identify the difference between perception and realitySparkNotes:
He intentionally heightens this impossibility when his characters contradict themselves several times in the collection of stories, rendering the truth of any statement suspect.My kid claims he didnt plagiarize - what do you think?
3. Tell them about the true punishment in an American high school - the student got a zero for the entire 2.5 page paper even though that was the only offending sentence. Students need to know that this is standard in American high schools. Ask a few students to comment on this.
4. Tell students that in university the consequences for the same offense would be far more severe. Here are some actual quotes, advice people gave the kid's dad (I used copy and paste, so check the spelling before composing a handout for your students):
Talk to him and explain about citing information and how important it is. My friend got suspended for three semesters up at Dartmouth for not citing an idea. He's lucky he got caught now. The penalties are much worse in college.Teacher needs to discuss the last one. It came from a lawyer who actually suggested suing the school district! Tell students the argument won't work with you because you are teaching them right now: Plagiarize one sentence and you get a zero. Do it twice and fail the course (or whatever your rules are).This will teach him a great lesson and he's lucky he got caught early. My friend got caught plagarizing at UCLA and he got thrown out.
He is being done a favor, being taught what is plagerism early on. That he denies it is plagarism is troubling. You need to have a serious talk with him that what he did is completely unacceptable, even if he got away with it many times in the past. Once he gets to college, the consequences will be much more severe.
He should be made to understand that changing a few words doesn't make the sentence his own.
Your son plagiarized. I hope this doesn't affect his college admissions. He really has no other choice but to admit it and try to make amends with the teacher. Hopefully colleges don't need to hear about this offense.
The only argument I can see that might save your son, is that this teacher failed to properly instruct the class what constitutes plagiarism. Your son was left to fend for himself,did the best he could with such limited instruction and the school should consider reprimanding this delinquent teacher.
I don't teach most of my students possessives. This is a natural order issue that advanced learners will begin to pick up naturally according to Krashen's Natural Order hypothesis. I don't asgree with a lot of things Krashen says, but since the apostrophe doesn't convey meaning I think we ahve the luxury of time - we can just wait for learners to "get it".
What made me think about this was an article on apostrophes and professionalism.
I know that Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul and catholic University in Bucheon are ahving their annual Spring festivals. At Sookmyung, the festival continues tonight and tomorrow (Friday) night.
I think festivals are fun with live music (when we stopped by the Sookmyung festival the music was pretty bad, but my wife says there were some good (and famous) musicians at the festival a few hours before we arrived.
Not surprisingly, there were quite a few males at the women's university festival. You certainly don't have to be a student or even remotely associated with the university to attend, so why not visit a university festival?
I met the new SLA teacher, the peron I'll be training next semester. I realized how hard it will be as I started explaining the course and didn't know exactly where to begin. We ended up talking about the course (a general overview) and assessment. I think it was fairly productive but I'll have to be better prepared next time we meet.
As the university semester here in Korea winds down, my former colleague using the grammar message board told me that he's had a great semester getting his students to interact with native speakers online.
Once again, I want to invite anyone to come use the forum, free. I hire native speakers to maintain conversations with anyone posting in the Tell us about yourself forum. We've seen some pretty good learning experiences:
Here's one learner who got some good practice discussing music. Another learner shared some thoughts on Korean culture, specifically Parents' Day in Korea. All in all, we just see lots of interesting exchanges develop. This is language learning, making it meaningful and having fun with it (do I sound like Krashen?).
Anyway, invite your studnets to come join the fun. I'll make sure they have native speakers to speak with.
Some of my previous students have lept in touch which is great, but of course most haven't. So it was a pleasant surprise when in the middle of interviewing applicant to the SMU-TESOL program, a former student from Catholic University walked in. We didn't ahve a chance to catch up or anything but it wass till nice to see a familiar face and who knows, she may be my student with SMU-TESOL next year.
When I wrote about teaching culture in an EFL class, I mentioned toward the bottom that I had a problem with students giving me too many compliments.
Then recently, a researcher asked me for my most memorable experience teaching English in Korea. I thought for a moment. There really is one experience that sticks out because it made me so uncomfortable. It was related to the being called handsome problem.
During a midterm or final oral exam a few years back, a group of students had chosen their 10 year reunion for their roleplay topic. I thought it was a fine idea until I learned that in the future, I had divorced my wife in order to marry one of the students.
Honestly, I was shocked that they had chosen such an inappropriate topic. I tried to laugh, but what I really wanted to do was fail them. Looking back, I think I should have stopped them, explained that the topic was inappropriate, and told them to start over.
Interestingly, I thought I had left all that behind me when I left Catholic University for Sookmyung Women's University TESOL program. In my teacher training position, I deal with students who have earned undergrad degrees. Many have teaching positions or other jobs. Plus I'm losing my hair!
For 8 weeks or so I was right. No compliments on my eyes or being handsome, just the occasional compliment on a suit or necktie or shirt. Anyway, then in one practicum class students were microteaching a lesson on comparisons. One model sentence they used was "Mr. Trotta is more handsome than Mr. xyz" (Mr. xyz is another teacher in the program). Again, I was struck by how entirely inappropriate Korean students sometimes are.
To quote what I posted here on June 15, 2004, "I honestly don’t know if Korean teachers receive compliments about their physical appearance. Do learners do it because it is acceptable in their culture? Or do they do it because they think it is acceptable in my culture?"