Tag Archives: making connections

Student Voice and Preventing Plagiarism

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An earlier AISL blog, “Engage to Prevent Plagiarism,” discussed resources and strategies to prevent plagiarism.  Encouraging students to engage with their topics and add their own voice was suggested by several authors as a method to prevent plagiarism (DeSena; Gilmore). One of my library objectives for this school year was to address the issue of plagiarism by guiding students to develop strategies and skills while also making the activities engaging for students and relevant to the curriculum. The following Preventing Plagiarism activity was a first step in helping students to make connections with ideas of others and to allow their own voices to be heard.

Engage with a Controversial News Story

Rather than confront students with a lecture on plagiarism, I collaborated with classroom teachers to connect a topical news story to their curriculum so that students could practice effective note taking and paraphrasing and be challenged to put their own spin on controversial topics.  Eighth graders in US History explored the Harriet Tubman $20 bill controversy.

Seventh grade ELA students examined an article on cloning (“Barbra Streisand Explains Why I Cloned My Dogs”) and compared motivations with ethical issues in their class novel The House of the Scorpion. (Streisand used a Texas company for the cloning procedure, so this made the news story more pertinent with our Texas students.)

Reasons and Examples of Plagiarism

After explaining that students would use the news story to practice paraphrasing to glean important ideas, we discussed the definition of plagiarism and the importance of respecting the words and ideas of others. In groups, students used “Think — Pair — Share” to identify the top three reasons students plagiarize.

Reasons most frequently identified included laziness, procrastination, concern over grades, and confusion about how to paraphrase and how to cite. This student brainstormed list was compared with a “Top Ten” list from Barry Gilmore’s book, Plagiarism: A How-Not-To Guide for Students (Heinemann 2009). Two items on Gilmore’s list that were missing in our students’ brainstorming were noteworthy: Student Culture and School Culture. We discussed the importance of creating a culture of learning in which ethical behavior is promoted and valued (both by students and educators/administrators) and the importance of students adding their own voices to the scholarly dialogue.

In order to show how the consequences of plagiarism and unethical behavior can escalate, we discussed that cases of plagiarism result in 1) teacher/parent conferencing and re-doing a project in the middle school; 2) impacting grades in high school; and 3) possible expulsion in college if a student is found to have plagiarized. In the business world, plagiarism could mean the loss of career. An example of a college student accused of plagiarizing is Harvard student Kaavya Viswanathan, whose novel was accused of having plagiarized passages from another YA author’s novel; Kaavya lost a $500,000.00 two-book contract and movie deal. Jayson Blair is an example of a plagiarist in the business world; this New York Times journalist resigned after being accused of inventing interviews and posting over 37 plagiarized stories. (One of Blair’s fabricated interviews concerned a Texas family grieving their soldier son, so this struck a chord with our Texas students.)

To transition to the Preventing Plagiarism activity, students viewed the video Citation: A Very Brief Introduction (Library of North Carolina State University). The video animation illustrates how ideas build upon multiple sources: entering into a dialogue with multiple ideas allows students to make their own connections.


Make Connections with Multiple Viewpoints

The Preventing Plagiarism activity to evaluate the controversial news stories was adapted from a “Paraphrase Practice” activity in Barry Gilmore’s book, Plagiarism: A How-Not-To Guide for Students. During this activity, students

  • used the first two paragraphs of the new story to write a general summary; 
  • looked closely to identify an important sentence;
  • circled three to four important words to write a paraphrased sentence. 
  • and located one more important quote in the article to practice introducing a direct quote and citing with an in-text citation.

As eighth grade students read the NYT article to select their quote, they weighed multiple viewpoints. Was the decision to delay the Tubman $20 bill driven by 1) anti-counterfeiting safeguards (viewpoint of treasury secretary); 2) race and culture (viewpoint of Democratic Senator); or political correctness (viewpoint of President Donald Trump)? Students worked in groups of two so that they could talk aloud and tweak their paraphrased sentences (making sure the sentences were in their own words).  Eighth graders shared their sentences aloud, and we noted how individual student voices were evident in the results.

Seventh grade students followed the same paraphrase activity as eighth grade, but they used the NYT article about Streisand’s decision to clone her dog. Students then were challenged to look closely at quotes from a chapter in The House of the Scorpion to write a comparison/contrast paragraph discussing motivations of the character El Patron for cloning the boy, Matt.  Sentence stems were provided to aid students’ discussion:

Reflection on the Preventing Plagiarism Activity

As a short introduction to strategies for paraphrasing and citing sources, this lesson was successful.  This forty-five minute class did not allow for additional activities, but eighth graders could be challenged to research further the historical background of Harriet Tubman and Andrew Jackson as they weigh the question of “What do we value as we decide who is featured on U.S. currency?”  The seventh grade teacher suggested a Socratic discussion could be a follow-up activity as students discuss further the character motivations and ethics of cloning. This Preventing Plagiarism activity promoted interesting insights from students and provided an opportunity for students to listen to their peers and appreciate how each used a similar source of information and added their own voice.

Bibliography

Barry, Dan, et al. “Correcting the Record: Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception.” New York Times, 11 May 2003, www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/us/correcting-the-record-times-reporter-who-resigned-leaves-long-trail-of-deception.html. Accessed 26 Aug. 2019.

“Citation: A Very Brief Introduction.” YouTube, uploaded by Libncsu, North Carolina State University, 23 July 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMhMuVvXCVw. Accessed 25 Aug. 2019.

DeSena, Laura Hennessey. Preventing Plagiarism. National Council of Teachers of English, 2007.

Farmer, Nancy. The House of the Scorpion. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2004.

Gilmore, Barry. Preventing Plagiarism: A How-Not-To Guide for Students. Heinemann, 2009.

Holt, Karen. “‘How Opal Mehta Got Kissed,’ Then Got Pulled.” Interview by Melissa Block. NPR, 28 Apr. 2006, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5369768. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.

Streisand, Barbra. “Barbra Streisand Explains: Why I Cloned My Dog.” New York Times, 2 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/style/barbra-streisand-cloned-her-dog.html. Accessed 26 Aug. 2019.

Zhou, David. “Student’s Novel Faces Plagiarism Controversy.” The Harvard Crimson, 23 Apr. 2006, www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/4/23/students-novel-faces-plagiarism-controversy-beditors/. Accessed 26 Aug. 2019.

Know Their Name

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I know that I am not a disservice to my school, but I can’t help but wonder how I can do more, do better, and fulfill my mission more completely.

Like many of you, I’m sure, I often question whether I am doing a good enough job. In many ways – and for many of the same reasons as you – I am quite sure I’m not! I don’t have enough staff. I don’t have enough hours in the day. Many of my colleagues don’t fully appreciate the resources we offer. Students are more interested in their smartphones than books.The list goes on. I ask myself if I am under serving my school community. I wonder if I’m a fraud. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t lie awake in bed at night stressing about if all of our students truly understand the importance of proper citation (because I know they don’t). Part of the awesomeness of being a member of AISL is being exposed to the exceptional work that my librarian colleagues across the country are doing. I am in awe of your energy, enthusiasm, professionalism, and dedication to our mutual passion. The downside of being aware of the your wondrous deeds is being painfully sensitive of exactly how I am falling short. I know that I am not a disservice to my school, but I can’t help but wonder how I can do more, do better, and fulfill my mission more completely.

It was with this feeling that my lone colleague and I traveled last spring to a small but highly selective liberal arts college last spring to spend some time in exactly the kind of college library into which many of our students will transition after they graduate. We went to see if we were adequately preparing our students for the college library experience. In addition to touring the library, we were also lucky to be able to spend an hour with the Director of Research Support and Instruction. Finally, we met in the student center with three students there who were graduates of our school: a freshman, a sophomore and a senior. If we were to boil our visit’s mission to an essential question it was: are we, as a library, aligning our efforts and environment to sufficiently prepare students for college?

Visiting with former students who are now in college to see if we set them up for success

I’ll spare you the dramatic build up. The answer is: yes! But how is that possible? We don’t have nearly the utilization of our databases that we ought to. We don’t have nearly the number of strategic partnerships with classroom teachers that we ought to. There’s too many students who still can’t find a book without our help. We have a collection that desperately needs more weeding. I haven’t done inventory in two years (at least)! So with all our admitted failings, the sorts of things that would cause a less tired person to lay awake in bed at night, how are we meeting the mission? Like a lot of beautiful solutions, the answer is quite simple. The relationship you have with your students is the most important part of your job, the library, and its mission.

Our school is a four year boarding school with about 350 students. The library staff is me and my colleague (who is part time). That’s it. Together we hold every title a library can manufacture. We are the directors, catalogers, liaisons to humanities, technical services, circulation managers and whatever other titles you might conceive – we are librarians. (And at our boarding school, we are also advisors, coaches, and dorm parents.) There’s no realistic way we can do each of these things exceptionally well. We just have to do them well enough. What’s more important is that we have a relationship with all our students. We know their names – each and every student, where they went on spring break, what their favorite sport is; we talk to them about food, pop culture, fashion, and music. In school meetings, when I have an announcement, I make it funny. I walk up the aisles, and project to the back of the room (a background in acting helps!) When they walk through on their way in or out, I say hello and engage them, directly. You’d be hard pressed to walk by me without at least a brief conversation. What’s the result of this engagement, this effort we put into making connections with students, investing in the relationship? Students feel comfortable in the library and comfortable with the librarian. They are less self-conscious about asking for help, admitting they actually don’t know how to use a database or find a resource. They are less bashful about asking for a book they might have interest in. You get to know the student, their interests, their tastes. I can tailor purchases of books to them because I know them.

When we toured the college library, we saw that, though the scale was different, we had nearly all the same elements as they did. We had quiet areas, active areas, books, technical resources, databases, magazines, staff at the ready. The librarians were knowledgeable and dedicated. The librarian told us that they didn’t expect students to arrive as junior MLS candidates. They expected them to arrive as college freshmen who still had much to learn. They expected them to be able to know what a library was and what the librarian might do for them, but not to be expert researchers. Sure, there will always be a few students who are proficient in their library skills, but more important is that they feel comfortable going to the librarian and asking for help.

When a senior graduates from our school they have to get a paper signed by various departments making sure that they are in good standing (athletics, business office, etc.). One of their stops is the library. I’m grateful that we get to see each student before they depart. Without fail, some senior will say, I’m not sure if I even ever checked out a book from the library. I tell them, always in good humor, that that’s nothing to brag about, and we have a laugh. Then I tell them to make sure they make friends with a college librarian. I tell them that they don’t have to go to parties with them, but that they should get to know a librarian by name because when you form a personal relationship with that person, you will be well disposed to get the information, get the best that library and librarian has to offer, and the benefits will be mutual.

I know that there’s much more I can do as a librarian. I won’t likely ever stop feeling that I am falling short in many ways. What I also know is that so long as I never stop making the effort to know each student, to greet them warmly – not just in the library – but wherever I encounter students, that I am the best librarian they’ve ever had!

Making Connections

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The Humber River Arch Bridge in Toronto. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/167_4034014/1/167_4034014/cite. Accessed 12 Nov 2018.

  • Librarians as engineers?  Not a great leap when you consider that librarians help students to build bridges from information to insights, making connections that add meaning to the research process.   Making connections is a powerful thinking strategy that engages students in active and meaningful learning.  In a recent publication by The University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, “Supporting Social, Emotional, and Academic Development: Research Implications for Educators,”   the authors state that  “students need new concepts to link in some way to things they already know, or they will not have the mental maps that their brains need to process the material;” building connections that reflect students’ interests or goals deepens the learning (Allensworth et al 10-11).

Tapping into several Visible Thinking routines from Harvard Project Zero, I worked closely with Sara Schultz, the fifth grade Geography teacher, to immerse students in the process of making connections. Following are a few examples:

Generate, Sort, Connect, Elaborate
Generate: Students mentally pictured the type of signs they might see in National Parks and brainstormed the reason for the signs.
“Do Not Feed the Bears”
personal danger from close contact with bears and
making bears dependent on food (losing ability to fend for themselves)

“Stay on the Trail”
might get lost, or dangerous/slippery/unstable land or
might damage native plants, ground cover

For a dramatic example of deterioration of a National park, students  also viewed an interactive graphic of Salt Lake Water Woes (earthobservatory.nasa.gov) and brainstormed cause for the drastic depletion of water.

Sort: Students pointed out which of the reasons were Human Factors that might harm the National Park, such as making bears dependent on human food or damaging native plants or water use and irrigation for agriculture depleting the Great Salt Lake.

Connect:
Several articles from the New York Times modeled for students how to connect cause to several effects, such as this article about Burmese Pythons in the Florida Everglades:


As students researched, they organized information on Concept maps.  In the example below, Gracie made connections between “Native Species — Bark Beetle — Killing Trees — Easier to Burn Down” and then draws a line to connect concept of Fire to concept of Native Species.  This student also added yellow exclamation symbols to those concepts she felt were important or needed further investigation, such as “Grizzly Bears recently removed from endangered lists now being shot in Wyoming.”

Circle of Viewpoints
This thinking routine was useful in showing connections between conflicting viewpoints: 1) brainstorm a list of perspectives; 2) assume a perspective;  and 3) generate questions or concerns from that viewpoint. Students viewed several New York Times articles about Bears Ears National Monument and assumed conflicting perspectives over land use:

Trump (open lands for development, such as mining, farming)
Patagonia (wilderness outfitter company– wants to protect recreational use of land)
Native Americans (who wish to protect lands as sacred sites)

This process of modeling strategies and guiding students to make connections has been exciting. I challenge librarians to put on your hard hat, pick up a Visible Thinking tool, and experiment with building your own bridge to knowledge.