Many students inadvertently plagiarize because they lack the skills they need to properly cite and reference sources. In what ways can lessons on citations be tied to those on plagiarism? How can you model and think aloud throughout the year to reinforce these skills?
I am excited about the Digital Storytelling Process and truly appreciate taking it through the entire Writing Process. I formerly taught Communication Arts and almost always required my 6th graders to complete the process. We even completed an experiment and compared writing with and without the process. Choosing a topic was difficult for many students, and I totally found myself in their shoes this week. I agree that most writing flourishes when the topic is relevant and significant to the writer. For this assignment, I felt unsure about selecting a topic due to it being my first attempt at digital storytelling. Even though I viewed examples and read through the suggested topics, I'm still somewhat unsure if my topic is appropriate.
Most of the instances of plagiarism that I have dealt with occurred due to a lack of experience with citing. While it wasn't intentional plagiarism, but it was still clearly wrong. In Chapter 3 of the Pearson book, Nancy shares a list of four categories or reasons for plagiarism. I couldn't agree more with the list and would have to say all of my "cases" would also fall into one or more of the categories. I see a bigger and bigger push for lessons on citations occurring at earlier grade levels. If students don't know when or how to cite, plagiarism will continue to occur. The building I work in offers several lessons on citing and plagiarism at the 6th grade level. Both our librarian and English Language Arts teachers teach the proper technique for citing sources and how to properly write when paraphrasing or using direct quotes. These lessons are reinforced in all areas, including my class.
Since my class allows students to utilize technology daily, I also discuss how the copying and pasting of information is not acceptable. In one lesson, I model at extreme example of copying a student's exact (to the best of my ability) actions, voice, mannerisms, answers, projects, etc. Every student in class usually recognizes what I'm doing very quickly. I ask the student I copied to share how he or she felt. I can then relate it to copying a person's work. While this model is not a perfect model of plagiarism, students seem to "get it" and remember it. I also teach them how to use EasyBib in my class to check for source reliability and create correct bibliography entries. If students learn that citing properly can be made easier with the use of tools, they are usually more apt to try it.
Frey, N., Fisher, D., & Gonzalez, A. (2010). Literacy 2.0: reading and writing in 21st century
classrooms. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
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