Academic Integrity?

[swimmermom3]

How do you talk to your students about academic integrity?

 

I would guess that most of us discuss cheating and plagiarism, but do you talk about veracity when it comes to assignments that require information from students that they would rather not share.

 

My son recently read an essay for his English class that talked about how often now English teachers require students to link their class reading with their personal life and that this was one of the reasons students didn't like literature classes. All three of my kids loathe those type of writing assignments and will often toy with the idea of taking a zero for the assignment before they cave and do the work.

 

I might as well tell you all that in the past few years, my advice has been "Fake it." I tell the kids to come as close to the truth as they can, but to change anything that makes them uncomfortable. Last year my youngest had a writing prompt after reading Night that asked him to write about a time when he lost something "just like the author of Night."  Ds thought the prompt was tasteless and stupid. He is fifteen and there is nothing he has lost that could equate with being a Holocaust survivor who saw his father die in a concentration camp. His thought was that you would have to be one of the kids who had suffered the loss of a parent or sibling in order to have an interesting story, yet if you were one of those classmates, why in the world would you want to talk about it with peers and a teacher that you knew little about.

 

My dd's senior year, I was the one who handed her a similar prompt that I had pulled straight from an AP English Language resource. After reading a selection from Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, dd was supposed to write about the time someone had thrown her a lifeline just like someone had done for Angelou. My daughter handed the assignment back and asked me what type of essay I expected as she had been battling depression since her sophomore year. It opened a good discussion about the viability of the prompt for most teens and what purpose was served academically in answering it. I allowed her to write a lifeline paper, but in the voice of someone else. It was a wonderfully satirical piece and well-crafted, but it would not have been satisfactory from a genre perspective. We talked about what her strategy would have been in a regular class where the assignment could not have been changed - what were the risks of actually writing about lifeguard training class. She could truthfully do that, but was definitely riding the border of literal interpretation.

 

For those of you that are teachers in a classroom setting, what would you expect from your student? How does a student maintain their academic and personal integrity without sharing more than they are comfortable with?

[Jean in Newcastle]

I would think it would be acceptable to say "I have never lost anyone or anything that could even come close to the experience of the protagonist in "Night" but my Grandpa . . .  "  or "I have never lost anyone or anything that could even come close to the experience of the protagonist in "Night".  The biggest loss I have had in my life was. . ."  

[swimmermom3]

I would think it would be acceptable to say "I have never lost anyone or anything that could even come close to the experience of the protagonist in "Night" but my Grandpa . . .  "  or "I have never lost anyone or anything that could even come close to the experience of the protagonist in "Night".  The biggest loss I have had in my life was. . ."  

 

Jean, you make that fairly straight-forward. I wonder if we way over-analyze those types of prompts, wanting to answer them on an honest and deep level that would seem to be called for.

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

Jean, you make that fairly straight-forward. I wonder if we way over-analyze those types of prompts, wanting to answer them on an honest and deep level that would seem to be called for.

 

I'm honest. . . but not very deep!   :lol:   It just seems to me that it is one way to answer honestly while gently pointing out that the prompt itself is a pretty tall order.  

[regentrude]

These prompts are ridiculous for most students.

I do not see it as a question of academic integrity, because IF the student had such a situation that was comparably traumatic, the instructor would most definitely have no business knowing about it; I completely agree with your son.

 

I also agree with Jean: the student should answer honestly that he had no life experience that compares with a holocaust survivor and create a substitute. If it is possible, I would encourage the student to talk to the instructor and tell him and ask what the instructor would prefer. Faking it won't work in such extreme cases, because you'd have to invent severe trauma to create a "comparable" experience.

 

Of course, if the prompt is on an AP test, then they should probably BS as much as they can and simply make up something. Again, I see no problem with integrity there, because it is an English exam and the topic simply a means to demonstrate writing skills; it can not be about the individual's personal experience per se. (Of course, inventing a personal trauma to gain sympathy or support would be dishonest - but this is not the case here.)

[elegantlion]

I've had to deal with that in my English class. Our essay was on praising an act that you witnessed that should receive public recognition. Recently I've witnessed a lot of acts that are praiseworthy, but most of them were done privately and too personal to share. I reached back into the annals of my life for something less revealing. As we read our classmates essays, I noticed an abundance of simple acts being used. I'm glad I went for something less personal. Granted this is not AP level, but I don't think a student should be forced to reveal too much personal information just to fit an assignment. 

 

I'm trying to pick out the point of the exercise, as in the assignment from Night, I'd do like Jean suggested. Recognizing your own personal boundaries is still important, imo. 

 

I've also picked through the wording of the assignment and made sure I'm covering each aspect required. For instance, in the essay I mentioned, we were required to name the act, describe why it worthy of recognition, and use specific explanations, and follow a certain paragraph development. The professor is very good at pointing out when a student is implying something that should be spelled out. Going back to the Night exercise, I might ask the teacher if no further direction was given. Are they going for loss? The sense of helplessness and despair? Circumstances beyond your control? 

 

Our next essay requires us to write about something we experienced in school prior to starting college.  :lol:  :lol:  Since, I'm not mentioning homeschooling, I'm going way far back, like to elementary school (circa 1976) for an event that still stands out. 

[Murphy101]

I have no idea. I always just took the zero in high school and told my teacher it was none of her business. My comp 1 and 2 professors opened their classes by saying something like, "When answering essay topics, please remember this is not a therapy session. I'm looking for well written assignments, not truth or dare type writing. Please do not feel a need to expose your private life to complete an assignment."

 

I can't remember the wording, but apparently both of them would have agreed with us that those type of assignments are ridiculous.

[alef]

I agree with those who say these prompts are really not appropriate, and since this is an exercise in WRITING, personal integrity should not be the issue. 

 

Bleh. 

[In The Great White North]

My comp 1 and 2 professors opened their classes by saying something like, "When answering essay topics, please remember this is not a therapy session. I'm looking for well written assignments, not truth or dare type writing. Please do not feel a need to expose your private life to complete an assignment."

If they realize its a problem, why do they continue to ask the questions?

 

It's right up there with the ubiquitous "journaling" that seemed to come with ALL of my master's courses (in education, of course). It's no wonder teachers are using it more and more - teacher training programs have been pushing it for more than 20 years.