Promote Intellectual Growth in Class
Have you ever been disappointed when you found out that students plagiarized their work? It’s a disheartening situation that undermines integrity and intellectual growth principles. I recently encountered this issue with three of my students, and my first reaction was wondering how can I help them understand the consequences of using other people’s work as their own.
After considering this situation, I came up with a few strategies that can help address this issue …
Make plagiarism a difficult thing to do. How?
- Talk about what plagiarism is and what it implies. Read with your students a clear policy that outlines what is allowed to do in class and what is not. You can download this policy HERE.
- Talk about the consequences of plagiarism. Download some questions for discussion HERE.
- When writing, ask them to write their draft copy in class, take a picture, and transcribe that copy into google classroom. Students should attach the image so the teacher can compare both versions of the essay.
- Ask them to personalize their work. For example, if they are reading “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” you could ask students to write about how someone they know might represent Dorian and what connections they can make to their own life and experience.
- Teach them to paraphrase. Give them different texts and ask them to use their own words when talking about them. That might be a great opportunity to expand their vocabulary and use dictionaries!
Once you detect plagiarised work, what can you do?
ESL teachers can easily detect plagiarism when students with poor speaking abilities write too good-to-be-true essays, right? So, the first approach to the issue will be to ask the student to explain what they wrote, paraphrase it, and then the truth will be unveiled. To double-check, you can use GPTZERO, but that is optional. Always use AI detectors in conjunction with your teaching knowledge of your student and experience.
Please share this blog post with your fellow educators, as we all play a crucial role in guiding our students toward ethical and responsible academic practices.
Take care,
Paula, The Resourceful English Teacher
