So, I have spent the better part of my afternoon grading general music papers. This paper is by far my least favorite part of teaching general music. (We are actually revamping our general music curriculum this year and it looks like this paper is getting the boot. Thank goodness.) The reason I hate grading these papers is all the plagiarism. After grading ten papers two kids totally copied their papers and another two copied enough that they are losing serious points.
I go over what plagiarism is and the punishment for doing it. I teach them how to make note cards about their topic; I collect 15 note cards before the paper is due. I make them write it in first person. Still every specials rotation I have at least one kid think they will get away with it. Most are smart enough to change the He to I, to try and make it look like they wrote it. But when I read stuff like “In the mid 1920’s I began to formulate a concept I called Elementare Muzik, or elementary music, which was based on the ancient Greek Muses and involve tone, dance, poetry, image….” lets just say I smell a rat. If any students read this blog, do not plagiarize! You will get caught and then you have to do the paper again for next to no credit and your parents have to get involved.
1 comment:
Welcome to my world! Grading papers blows. It's especially hard when they are informative papers because they will want to get every detail right. They figure copying is the only way to do it. :P They don't want to have to actually think about what they are reading or writing and figure out a way to put it into their own words.
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