Re: Helping kids past plagiarism

[Ken Umbach <kumbach@UNLIMITED.NET>]

Hi ... one comment, if I may ...

At 05:20 PM 3/20/98 -0400, Lynda Tempest wrote:
...
>I was a classroom teacher of fourth and fifth grade.  Now I am a Media
>Specialist.  If I ever go back into the classroom (at any grade level) I
>will never again require a written "report" that could be copied from
>reference materials.   It is a counterproductive and useless exercise.
...

My experience in school, way, way, _way_ back <grin> involving researching
and writing reports was invaluable.  Now I make a living finding stuff out
and writing about it -- in essence doing glorified term papers -- and owe
much of my ability to do so to a good grounding in exactly what you would
eschew.  Granted, it was a step-by-step process of building skills over
years, culminating in a senior year term paper that was the most demanding
piece of work I had ever done to that time and that was sufficient
experience that I never was in doubt about how to research and write in
college or after.  (It was a paper on the concept of moderation, or
temperance, in Plato's _Republic_, which I still can re-read with pleasure.)
I would not trade any of it for anything.

Of course, much lies in that "that could be copied from reference
materials."  Assignments really need to be crafted in ways that preclude
simple copying.

Just my $.02 ...

Regards,

Ken


--
Kenneth W. Umbach, Ph.D., Policy Analyst
California Research Bureau, California State Library
900 N. Street, Suite 300, Sacramento, California 95814
E-mail: kumbach@unlimited.net (or kumbach@library.ca.gov)
Phone (voice) 916-653-6002 (fax) 916-654-5829
Personal Web page and selected papers: http://members.unlimited.net/~kumbach
This message reflects my opinion, not that of my employer or anyone else.

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