The Dust Bowl… by Wikipedia
This week my Grade 11/12 Agriculture class has been putting the finishing touches on their Dust Bowl “mini-museum displays”. My students were responsible for finding some type of media (photo or video), creating some type of artifact and completing a written report. Here is how their project was set up.
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The Greatest Dust Bowl
Photograph
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Witnessing the Dust Bowl
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Dust-Phenomena
P.S.A
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Dust Bowl Citizen Trading Card
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From the Dust Bowl,
With Love
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Agricultural Causes & Effects of the Dust Bowl
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Row 1 = media
Row 2 = artifacts
Row 3 = written report
Students had their choice of two options in Row 1 and their choice of three options in Row 2, but Row 3 was mandatory.
Last night as I sat marking some of the projects I noticed that one of the written reports was clearly not student-created work. I quickly went to Google and, sure enough, a Wikipedia article popped up with the same sentences as the report I had in my hand. Was I mad? Yes. After giving a week’s worth of in-class time to work on this project, why would you need to go to Wikipedia and copy your information? Was I disappointed? Yes. My students were given a very clear rubric of the information that was required and all of this information was available in their notes; there was no need for further internet research. The report I had in my hand was not only plagiarized, but it didn’t even complete the requirements stated in the rubric!
I sat down and thought about how to approach my student in class the next day. Do they get a zero? Do I ask them to redo it? Do I phone their parents? Do I send them to the office? To me, if a student is plagiarizing their work to the extent where they are not even looking at the assignment to see if they are completing what is asked, then something else is obviously going on.
When class started this morning I called the student up to my desk and asked them to pull up a seat. I didn’t mention their project or the fact that it was plagiarized. What I did was pull out the rubric for the assignment and slowly ask them to explain their understanding of each of the points.
– What type of weathering occurred during the Dust Bowl?
– Can you explain that weathering process to me?
– What would be a specific example of this type of weathering?
– What part of the soil profile was specifically affected by this event?
– Why is that soil horizon important?
– Etc
I did this for each of the points on the rubric and wrote down their answers as I went along. As soon as they were finished I quickly tallied up their mark and said, “Thank you sharing that information with me, now I have a good sense of your understanding. Your paper, however, wasn’t able to show me that. Next time you find yourself stuck and wanting to head towards the copy/paste button just say, ‘Miss L, I want to have a conversation with you about what I know.’ That will be a better option, ok?”. I could literally see my student’s emotions change from confusion, to embarrassment, to appreciation within a minute.
Would I do this with any of my students? Like anything, it would depend on the specific situation and their personal history but the purpose of the assignment was not, “Can the student write a written report,” it was, “Can the student understand the causes and effects of the Dust Bowl,” which could be demonstrated many different ways. If a student is openly choosing to plagiarize their work I’m going to think that maybe something else is going on.
– Lack of understanding on the subject
– Need another way to demonstrate their knowledge
– Situations at home
– Etc
How do you deal with these type of situations in your classroom(s)?