From the somebody pinch me files...

All three sections of my English Fundamentals class turned in their research papers before Thanksgiving Break. I did this in part out of consideration for them, as I remember from my college days how annoying it was to work on a paper over a holiday like Thanksgiving. I also did this for myself, so I would have a block of time in which to grade them. Every semester there are inevitably one, or two, or three, or sometimes five--as in one record-breaking semester--students who plagiarize their papers right off the web. The assignment is somewhat conducive to this, but only somewhat, as I have them write the paper in sections over a four-week period just to eliminate the temptation for last-minute cuts and pastes.

Today I handed back the papers and confronted four perpetrators of plagiarism (three in one section, one in the other). Well, I took the cowardly way out and wrote my comments on the bottom of the last page of their papers, along with an "F" and that terrible phrase that strikes horror in a student's heart--come see me in my office. Students A and B came, were contrite and ashamed, and will attempt to rewrite the paper by Friday. Student C never showed up. Student D came by, also ashamed and fidgety. He stood by my desk fidgeting and fidgeting while I talked with him about his paper and made suggestions to him about how he could separate himself from his beloved internet crutch and actually write all by himself, without any help at all from the mouse and the highlight function.

Imagine, if you will, that right next to the student was a low table on which stood a box of carefully bagged assorted cookies which I had prepared for the English honor society's bake sale today. My office is cramped, so the student was wedged between my desk, and the cardboard box of cookies, clearly labeled "Bake Sale Cookies! Fifty Cents a Bag!" Imagine also the surreal moment in which I realized, as I glanced up from the student's paper to make a critical point about the importance of honesty and integrity that the student had worked his hand into the box and had, indeed, snagged a bag of cookies and was sliding it into his pocket surreptitiously complete with a classic and obvious cough to cover up the crinkle sound the bag made as it encountered the cloth of his jeans pocket.