Dammit...

I have another plagiarist in 102. Maybe three of them. And the Accidental Plagiarist did the exact same thing, missing needed citations for ideas from his sources, on his final paper. So never mind all my fussing about what to do with his second essay: I told him he needed to learn what plagiarism is before he's ready to move on to the next level. He asked if I could give him a D. No, I said: you need to take the class over. He was furious--but civil to me (thank god for the respect taught in other cultures), and he stormed in with the withdrawal form shortly after class ended. The young woman who almost caught fire but turned in her paper late was surprisingly unfazed by being told that I wouldn't accept the paper and that she wouldn't pass the class. I gave her a lecture about responsibility, and told her that she was driving me crazy because she could have been a good student if she'd done the work. She listened and nodded, said "OK," and left. So, OK.

But the other instances of definite or suspected plagiarism bother me. The definite one is the paper by a lovely young woman who has tons of potential. Clearly she's gotten good grades before now because of that potential, but as the semester progressed, it became increasingly clear that her deficiencies were deeper and more problematic than first appeared. I need to check the rest of her paper (I'll run it through the plagiarism detector program when I get home), but I already found one small instance. I didn't talk to her about it today; I just told the whole class that I might have to call people in for individual conferences--and I already knew that she was going to get the call. I'll determine her fate partly depending on what the rest of the plagiarism check shows up, partly depending on her response when I confront her with what she's done. But I'm deeply disappointed that she'd even try the bit that I see so far. I'm sure she was motivated by panic, but still; for someone with that much potential to fall back on cheating at the end is simply painful.

The other two papers I haven't checked yet. As I began reading the second of the problematic papers, I noticed some ideas that made me wonder; then a few distinctive phrases raised more red flags. I'm hoping like hell that the time I spend typing it up so I can run it through the program proves that she has not, in fact, cheated. She's struggled a lot more than the other young woman, splashing about but not even quite dog-paddling yet, but still, if she's opted to cheat at the end, I'll be distressed.

 And the third is Mr. Shrug and Smirk. He wants comments on his paper--and he may get comments he doesn't much like. At the very least, he's guilty of not providing sufficient credit for ideas from a source; I'm hoping that's all. But I'm going to type it up and run the detector check just in case there's more.

I fucking hate this.

On a nicer note, the students from Nature in Lit gave me a lot of helpful feedback. Indeed, Wonder Student made a suggestion that I ran past the 102 students, too, and I like it so well I'm going to try to use it in all my classes in the fall. He suggested that I demonstrate the kind of thinking/questioning that needs to happen when approaching a work of literature, that I present a work that is not on the syllabus, go through it and show what analysis looks like. My first idea was to present students with a short text and my own journal-log, but the students in 102 said it would be more helpful to see it "live," as it were. So I'm going to figure out how to do that: PowerPoint (one screen cross-fading into another, items being added...)? A Word document with the "Notes" feature activated? If I do this, I will have to be on top of the game very early, as I'll also have to make sure I have the AV set-up ready for the various rooms, which would have to be requested well in advance. The need to be ready with it early may be a significant impediment to my actualizing this plan. But it sure seems valuable.

The Nature in Lit students across the board had good feedback. (I think I need to institute the whole self-evaluation thing for lit electives, too, by the way.) They also suggested that it would be very helpful to have some critical readings specifically assigned. I don't remember if I ever tried doing so in that course, but I do it in Native American Lit, so it would make sense to do it for Nature in Lit, too. (It would be harder to implement in the Short Story class, as students have too many options for what to write about--but maybe I need to devote one day to a critical source that we all read, maybe even a critical source about the same piece I do my analysis demo on...?) But the three of them clearly learned a lot this semester, and they are aware of it, which is lovely.

It was especially sweet to me that the young woman, who almost abandoned the class in frustration over her grades at one point, gave me a thank-you card and gift. The card reads, "You pushed me, and continued to push me. Thank you so much for a wonderful semester. Enjoy your summer. You can start it off with a great book!" She and I had had a conversation about Wicked, which she loved, so she gave me a copy. Lovely. I'm genuinely moved, and said so.

I also got a sweet thank you and gift from Kayla: a charming card, a bottle of wine, and Swamplandia, which is one of her favorite books (and which has been on my library list for ages; now I own it). The best gift from her, however, is that she wants to do another internship in the fall--and if she does, she'll either intern my Short Story class, or she may intern one of Paul's 101 classes. Either way, she'll be around, and that will be delightful.

And with that, I hit a wall. I think I can manage to type in the remaining suspect papers so I don't have to do it at home and can just run the program, but then it's homeward bound for me.