Anonymous
Post 06/20/2014 12:26     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
There are nuances to some school programs. Let us all pretend that this child is at BASIS DC.

BASIS has an approach such that there are no remedial classes. You are either doing the work that is at grade level or not.

Also the program is accelerated so that children complete the curriculum for 12th grade at the end of 11th grade.

IMO from reading the posts the child is able to be successful in spitting out facts / information b/c of his strong short term memory.

English lit is a subject area that requires a different skill set to do well academically. In a charter school - where teachers are not always have credentials - it may be hard to get a good match for a child who has learning challenges due to a 2nd language and the aggressive curriculum.
Anonymous
Post 06/20/2014 12:13     Subject: Re:DS accused of plagiarizing test
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:First of all, I'm actually a little stunned that no one is mentioning that the student had two tutors/aids assist with the paper -- which in and of itself can sometimes slide into 'cheating' -- in the sense that the work is on some level not entirely the student's own. But perhaps the students were allowed to get external help on the drafts.

So, presuming that they were allowed to get external help, OP, I'd question the competency of the tutors -- at the least, the retired college professor should have been talking to your DC about citing....

You mention that this is a highly-regarded charter school. I find it impossible (sorry) to believe that your DC hasn't learned about citing sources: information literacy/citation is at this point essential in any curriculum and is taught as early as elementary school.

Frankly, your DC is lucky that this didn't happen in an AP setting and that there's a second chance being offered. I agree that the teacher and administrator should have handled the approach differently and in a more timely manner, but your child and the tutors also had some lessons to learn, too.

(FWIW, I'm a former English professor who's taught high school students and is extremely familiar with the curricula in the region's K-12 as well as in higher ed. I'm sorry that the school didn't handle the approach differently, because that failure makes it far too easy to blame this on the school rather than to get at the heart of the matter -- the student's need to learn to display origianal versus assisted or borrowed thinking and writing.)


Yep, plagiarism doesn't just apply to published work. If the OP's child got help on a take home exam, and some of the ideas in the paper came from a tutor or professor, then that's plagiarism too.

OP, you are incredibly lucky the school is allowing him a retake. You've got too choices. You can have him take the consequence that would ordinarily apply, or you can accept the lesser consequence of retaking the test. Only you can decide how to weigh the cost of changing plans vs. the cost of the low grades. You've spent a lot of money so far to assure that his grades don't reflect his abilities. It seems as though you have the option to do so again.


This. I'm still amazed that OP tried to get his/her son exempted from English because s/he knew he wouldn't do well in it. Ah, if only we could all pick and choose only the classes we excel at - we'd all go to Harvard!
Anonymous
Post 06/20/2014 12:10     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
Anonymous wrote:Why would any student plagiarize knowingly and how come the tutors helping with the essay did not see it or did not do anything about it?


1) Obviously, to get a better grade than s/he could earn on his or her own using his or her own words, language skills, reading comprehension, and/or effort level.

2) Are tutors supposed to have encyclopedic knowledge of every passage in every study guide? And the tutors helped with your son with the prep answers, but didn't take the actual test for your son, correct?? How could they control what he did during exam time?

OP, you seem like you're in denial. These things happen; just give your son a sternly worded talk about cheating and stop trying to blame everyone except him. The teacher, the administration, the tutors...come on. Your son is struggling in that class; he plagiarizes a lot; he needs to stop before he ruins his academic career. Very few schools will accept ignorance on his part as an excuse, and none will let you blame them instead of him.
Anonymous
Post 06/20/2014 12:08     Subject: Re:DS accused of plagiarizing test
Anonymous wrote:First of all, I'm actually a little stunned that no one is mentioning that the student had two tutors/aids assist with the paper -- which in and of itself can sometimes slide into 'cheating' -- in the sense that the work is on some level not entirely the student's own. But perhaps the students were allowed to get external help on the drafts.

So, presuming that they were allowed to get external help, OP, I'd question the competency of the tutors -- at the least, the retired college professor should have been talking to your DC about citing....

You mention that this is a highly-regarded charter school. I find it impossible (sorry) to believe that your DC hasn't learned about citing sources: information literacy/citation is at this point essential in any curriculum and is taught as early as elementary school.

Frankly, your DC is lucky that this didn't happen in an AP setting and that there's a second chance being offered. I agree that the teacher and administrator should have handled the approach differently and in a more timely manner, but your child and the tutors also had some lessons to learn, too.

(FWIW, I'm a former English professor who's taught high school students and is extremely familiar with the curricula in the region's K-12 as well as in higher ed. I'm sorry that the school didn't handle the approach differently, because that failure makes it far too easy to blame this on the school rather than to get at the heart of the matter -- the student's need to learn to display origianal versus assisted or borrowed thinking and writing.)


Yep, plagiarism doesn't just apply to published work. If the OP's child got help on a take home exam, and some of the ideas in the paper came from a tutor or professor, then that's plagiarism too.

OP, you are incredibly lucky the school is allowing him a retake. You've got too choices. You can have him take the consequence that would ordinarily apply, or you can accept the lesser consequence of retaking the test. Only you can decide how to weigh the cost of changing plans vs. the cost of the low grades. You've spent a lot of money so far to assure that his grades don't reflect his abilities. It seems as though you have the option to do so again.
Anonymous
Post 06/20/2014 12:07     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
Anonymous wrote:Why would any student plagiarize knowingly and how come the tutors helping with the essay did not see it or did not do anything about it?


Unless the tutor was working on the paper with the student (looking at the sources) he wouldn't know it was plagiarized. It sounded more like the tutor helped with editing and other writing pieces. Plagiarism isn't always easy to find unless you know the sources or know what you are looking for. Especially if he was plagiarizing himself.
Anonymous
Post 06/20/2014 12:04     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
Anonymous wrote:Why would any student plagiarize knowingly and how come the tutors helping with the essay did not see it or did not do anything about it?


Students cheat knowingly all the time. I'm not saying the OP's kid did, but it's not a rare thing. Hell, students purchase entire papers off the internet.
Anonymous
Post 06/20/2014 11:58     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
Why would any student plagiarize knowingly and how come the tutors helping with the essay did not see it or did not do anything about it?
Anonymous
Post 06/20/2014 00:48     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Also, know that common knowledge can't be plagiarized. Many inexperienced teachers are unaware of this fact.


Exactly. Definitions cannot be be plagiarized either, but will show as such.


Not true. Word for word definitions need to be sourced. You can't pretend the definition is your own words if you copied and pasted it. Common knowledge doesn't mean all shared knowledge. Only certain things fall under the common knowledge exception.


Obviously the student did not know what the teacher was expecting
Different teachers approach this matter in different ways.
Grading writing is very subjective.


Anything copied word for word that isn't cited is plagiarism. Not subjective at all. You can't write as though the words or ideas of others are your own. Kids learn this starting in about 4th grade and it is taught every year. I have never seen a school that didn't start teaching basic research skills early on. By 9th grade a students should know they can't copy and paste and they can't claim the ideas of others as their own. It isn't subjective - it is quite objective. They might not always get it right, but that is different than not sourcing/citing at all. That is clearly plagiarism. Clearly spelled out on numerous sites about plagiarism. If OP's son has tutors and college professors helping him write his papers, they too would tell him he has to use sourses and citations.
Anonymous
Post 06/20/2014 00:39     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Also, know that common knowledge can't be plagiarized. Many inexperienced teachers are unaware of this fact.


Exactly. Definitions cannot be be plagiarized either, but will show as such.


Not true. Word for word definitions need to be sourced. You can't pretend the definition is your own words if you copied and pasted it. Common knowledge doesn't mean all shared knowledge. Only certain things fall under the common knowledge exception.


Obviously the student did not know what the teacher was expecting
Different teachers approach this matter in different ways.
Grading writing is very subjective.
Anonymous
Post 06/19/2014 23:52     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
pp you sound like a disgruntled teacher or administrator.
Anonymous
Post 06/19/2014 23:50     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Also, know that common knowledge can't be plagiarized. Many inexperienced teachers are unaware of this fact.


Exactly. Definitions cannot be be plagiarized either, but will show as such.


Not true. Word for word definitions need to be sourced. You can't pretend the definition is your own words if you copied and pasted it. Common knowledge doesn't mean all shared knowledge. Only certain things fall under the common knowledge exception.
Anonymous
Post 06/19/2014 23:43     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
OP, the more you post the more clear the situation becomes: your son is habitually plagiarizing and he is REALLY lucky the school gave him another chance. Instead of shifting blame to them and complaining that they're getting in the way of his vacation, you should be more worried about having a serious talk with your son about the very high chance he'll get flunked - if not expelled - from school or college if keeps this up. He's being given very special treatment right now whether you understand and appreciate that or not. It won't happen in college. And it probably won't keep happening at his current school now that they know what's going on.

It sounds like he's struggling and so he's resorting to cheating to keep up. I assume there's pressure on him from home to have an excellent GPA and that's why you tried to keep him out of this class. Is there a lower level he can drop down to?
Anonymous
Post 06/19/2014 23:29     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
Anonymous wrote:Also, know that common knowledge can't be plagiarized. Many inexperienced teachers are unaware of this fact.


Exactly. Definitions cannot be be plagiarized either, but will show as such.
Anonymous
Post 06/19/2014 23:26     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
Also, know that common knowledge can't be plagiarized. Many inexperienced teachers are unaware of this fact.
Anonymous
Post 06/19/2014 23:22     Subject: DS accused of plagiarizing test
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:WOW! This is taking a life of its own.
OP here.
The school did not let us opt out of taking this literature course even though DS studied English language at a much lower level -- three to be specific. The teacher knew he was being tutored as the literature readings and the homeworks were too difficult for him. His essays required him to cite the book and the page only. That was his accommodation in this class.. He could have memorized direct quotes from the book and cited the pages, had it been a requirement for the final.
By the way, I ran his other essays through Turnitin which showed more plagiarizm than this one. I then ran my own CV through the website and I found out that I had heavily plagiarized my own résumé.
I also found it to be quite strange that no one informed me about it for several hours past the incident, and responded only after I wrote to them.


So plagiarism is a habit for him?



Yeah but it's totally fine. All the schools fault. Her little snowflake couldn't possibly do anything wrong