Today one of the students in my afternoon class confessed that he didn't write the first two papers he turned in. He's been really busy, he said, and he just used some papers that his sister wrote. There are only three papers in our class, two response papers based on a piece of literature, and a final research paper, which we're working on right now. That means that all of the papers we've done so far, he's plagiarized. The official policy is that this requires me to fail him in the class. I went to see Dr. Raign, the director of the Freshman Writing program at the university, but she wasn't around. So I talked to Dr. Phillips instead, who is the assistant director. Dr. Philips said she would be willing to give a student the opportunity to re-write the original papers; she also recommended that I talk to Dr. Raign and predicted that she would say to just fail him. "Basically," she told me, "it's your choice what you want to do with him." I haven't spoken to Dr. Raign yet, but I'm having a really hard time deciding what to do with this. I don't like the idea of letting him escape the consequence for a very serious transgression. On the other hand, I do feel a certain responsibility to dispense mercy. "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure yet mete, it shall be meted to you again" (
Matthew 7:2).
Teaching has certainly given me a lot more appreciation for Heavenly Father and the Savior and their immensely difficult jobs as judges.
On the brighter side of things, I am getting ready to give a presentation at a Graduate Student Conference on linguisitcs and literature in Louisiana this weekend. I'm pretter nervous and excited for it, and I'm feeling a bit stressed about getting the presentation ready. I'm a little worried about squeezing 60 pages' worth of research into 20 minutes. But it's definitely something I need to do if I want to have any kind of career in this field.
Also, Erin is going to make dinner for us tonight. Chicken parmesan and ratatouille. Mm-mmm!! I bought tons of frozen foods the last time I went to the store, and since then I've been sharing lots of it with Erin, as she's been super busy with her final paper for a class. So she offered to make dinner sometime during this week to make up for taking all my food. :) We're pretty excited ... especially since it's parmesan chicken, after all!
Rumble, rumble, rumble - mutiny, mutiny, mutiny. (12 points)
5 comments:
I don't like the way the crew is acting! - You're over-playing it a little bit yourself there...
Hooray for Stan!
I hope all of your frustrations work themselves out soon. At any rate, please enjoy Erin's cooking for me. :) The hubby and I are living off of hot dogs for the moment while we finish moving, but hopefully we'll be back to actual meals soon.
Much love from your faithful Utah reader!
"That's the trouble with labor today. Don't they realize we're going to discover the new world?"
"I'll jump up here on the rigging and speak to them."
"You mean on top of everything else this ship is rigged?"
"What was that?"
"French Horns."
"No. I mean before that."
"Oh. It was the lookout. He sighted land."
"Look, I'm going down in history at the moment; can you come back in a little while?"
"Good heaves! We've been diddled!"
"Tomorrow we apply for foreign aid!"
Anyway, being a teacher sounds really hard. Good luck with that. My own opnion is that you should show mercy because the student admitted it to you. I'd probably have him rewrite the essays on his own for partial credit (highest grade a C instead of an A). Let us know what you do.
From another faithful Utah reader... :)
I second Paul's comment. I think that to clearly outline the punishment as stated in policy, then say that you are grateful for the honesty and impose a limit as to the maximum points possible on a re-write would be how I would do it.
Isn't being a teacher marvelous? It took me way too many semesters to stop being an enabler for my lazy students. Here's to hoping you are doing a better job sooner.
And do I even need to tell you that I know where the quote is from?
While I don't have any idea where this quote comes from, I did notice that I was never given my points for knowing the Walk Don't Run quote. Scandal! I hope that that particular problem will soon be corrected to everyone's satisfaction.
On the subject of your teaching dilemma, I don't have anything brilliant to add. I think, though, that you should keep in mind that he did confess of his own will. I agree with letting him rewrite (after a stern talk) with a lower starting grade. In the end, though, it's your decision. Good luck!
Kimberly
By way of follow-up --
I told the student he could re-write the papers, with an automatic deduction of 30 points per paper, which would still easily allow him a D or C grade in the class. Otherwise, I said, I would have to fail him.
He opted for the F and a summer course.
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