If Only My Middle Name Were Courage
I have decided that flying home from Thanksgiving on Saturday instead of Sunday is the best idea ever. I was home by dinnertime last night, giving me the entire day today to do my laundry, straighten up the house, and catch up on the work I knew I wouldn't do while visiting with my family. Not to mention that the airport waiting time is significantly decreased. (Unless, like me, you wore a big comfy sweatshirt to the airport and were therefore pulled out of line for a full security pat-down before even walking through the metal detector. But that's got to be rare.)
Having an entire day here are home to recover from the trip and get some work done has also allowed me to catch up on the grading of research papers. In addition to just grading the papers themselves, I am using an online service that checks for plagiarism. I emphasized to my class over and over (starting from the first day!) that I would be doing this. I had hoped that people would take me seriously and this would just be a formality. Sadly a few people thought I wouldn't catch them. And now, I have to figure out what to do with a student who took half of their paper directly off of a website. *sigh* I figure that I will start with an email that looks like this:
Dear Cheater,
Please come to see me at your earliest convenience to discuss your research paper. I caught you cheating and you have severely irritated me, the person who assigns your grade and has the authority to hand your butt over to the Honor Council.
Sincerely,
PissedOffInstructor
I will probably leave that second sentence out. But after that? I wish I had more courage to confront this student. Right now I want to hand out an F and be done with it. I'm not particularly good with face to face confrontation, though, so I fear that I will back down once seated across the desk from this student. Somehow in the next 18-24 hours I have to work up the nerve to deal with this, though, because it's entirely inexcusable. But why is it me that is nervous about confronting a cheater? Shouldn't it be this student that's afraid of me?
Having an entire day here are home to recover from the trip and get some work done has also allowed me to catch up on the grading of research papers. In addition to just grading the papers themselves, I am using an online service that checks for plagiarism. I emphasized to my class over and over (starting from the first day!) that I would be doing this. I had hoped that people would take me seriously and this would just be a formality. Sadly a few people thought I wouldn't catch them. And now, I have to figure out what to do with a student who took half of their paper directly off of a website. *sigh* I figure that I will start with an email that looks like this:
Dear Cheater,
Please come to see me at your earliest convenience to discuss your research paper. I caught you cheating and you have severely irritated me, the person who assigns your grade and has the authority to hand your butt over to the Honor Council.
Sincerely,
PissedOffInstructor
I will probably leave that second sentence out. But after that? I wish I had more courage to confront this student. Right now I want to hand out an F and be done with it. I'm not particularly good with face to face confrontation, though, so I fear that I will back down once seated across the desk from this student. Somehow in the next 18-24 hours I have to work up the nerve to deal with this, though, because it's entirely inexcusable. But why is it me that is nervous about confronting a cheater? Shouldn't it be this student that's afraid of me?
posted by Meredith | 2:31 PM
7 Comments:
Yes! They should be afraid. What if you email them to make an appointment with you and let them stew in it for a while? That's worse than having to admit it is just wondering. Then I hope you hand them over to the Honor Council, right? Or is that just how it was at my Baptist Strict Women's College?
That's my hope, that if I send an email this student will stew in their own guilt for a while. That will make my job a lot easier when I finally do end up talking to them.
I vote for leaving the second sentence in the e-mail. Or, if the school deosn't require the face-to-face meeting, give the student the F and hand his butt over to the Honor Council and avoid the confrontation altogether.
And if you need inspiration, to quote a friend of mine, "TAing is pretty much what you make of it. Even the most oppressed grad student in the most ridiculously inflationary department can find opportunities to strap on the hob-nailed jack-boots of academic rigour and amuse himself by crushing the upper vertebrae of the unfit."
(I know you're teaching, but the sentiment applies. Giving grades less than zero is also fun if you get the opportunity.)
Craig is one power hungry nerd man.
Hey, I spent all Thanksgiving weekend in a ridiculously cold lab trying and failing to do science. And now I want to take a little time and bask in the abject misery of undergraduates, if you don't mind.
Well, abject misery or cake. I'd settle for a slice of cake.
Mmmmm.... cake.
And I have to agree that grad students don't have a lot of power (or fun) so we have to take it where we can get it.
no backing down in the face of confrontation! you would be doing no one any favors by not busting this kid as hard as you can. god, cheaters make me FURIOUS!!! most of all, as a non-cheater, i always thought it was unfair to ME when a cheater got a good grade they didn't earn. screw that. nail the kid's ass to the wall! but remember, you are also reading words from a girl who told one of her students to shut up and take her F like a man, too. perhaps a modicum of discretion is in order... :)
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