A Life Lesson: Don’t Cheat Yourself. Read the Whole Book.
I just finished grading this semester’s major essay for my senior English classes.
My goal was to have each student read a book– cover to cover– and write a paper on that book.
Sound simple?
Not so much.
We are in an age in which the technology at our fingertips makes cheating ourselves out of an education marvelously easy:
Read the summary. Copy and paste someone else’s words and pass them off as your own. Rearrange them a bit if you like. Or pay for an online subscription to browse prewritten papers, and choose one to pass off as your own. Or if you’re a more sophisticated cheater with some cash in your pockets, pay someone you’ve never met to write your paper for you. Just send the ghostwriter a copy of your assignment and a credit card number and consider it done.
I am pleased to note that of the 118 essays I collected and graded over the past three weeks, only three evidenced academic dishonesty. However, this chiefly-positive result is tied to some notable, proactive strategizing to curb such cheating. For example, I compose writing prompts that are not readily answered by using summary websites or prefab papers for purchase. Too, I require my students to pass an interview with me in which we discuss the book that the student is supposed to have read. Finally, students must also be able to hold a conversation with me about their own paper, with the understanding communicated upon issuance of the assignment that students must pass their book and paper interviews in order to receive credit for their papers.
Passing these interviews is only difficult for those who have not read the full book and/or not authored their own papers.
When I explain my system– the efforts I undertake to help assure that students CONTINUE READING: A Life Lesson: Don’t Cheat Yourself. Read the Whole Book. | deutsch29
