Re: Re[2]: Grading, Plagiarism, Webbed Writing and ...

janet cross (hceng028@DEWEY.CSUN.EDU)
Tue, 6 Aug 1996 13:36:29 -0700


On Tue, 6 Aug 1996, Kenneth Robert Wright wrote:
> True enough, Janet. But the perception is that of a grad student working
> alone in a musty (misty?) library to produce a dissertation. As I
> mentioned in relation to the post on plagiarism, it's not the academy
> that needs to be resisted but the perceptions outside the academy.

Well, my own personal stance is that everything needs resistance as part of
the rhetorical dramtic/dialectical/dialogical process, one that points to the
clatter and clash of dis/agreement, much as it is being enacted on this list
right now in a very cool way. At at that place of discord, we might just find
the base assumption, the motive, the carnival, the folly, the jester, that we
need to pay attention to. I urge my students to even resist me. Not an easy
thing for them to do when they have, for the most part, been raised on
"AUTHORITY." And I haven't always been a Grad stud. I resisted high school so
much, I dropped out. That was very much an authority issue.

> Again, I agree, but that form of scholarship is not yet recognized as

Sure it is. That's what I am trying to say. That's what we *are* doing
here. Right now. In this place. At this time. So why can't undergrads
do it? Mine do?

> having the same value as the traditional ways of doing scholarship:
> citing the "grand wizzars." And, again, back to the plagiarism issue, it
> is, IMHO, unethical of us to use undergraduates to buck the
> academy--implied by those who would give the student who borrowed the
> links an A--when it is the culture outside the academy, where most people
> exist most of the time, that must be changed first.

I would not "give" that student an "A" I would negotiate the grade with
em. Part of *eir task would be to reflect on *eir process...explaining
what *eir learned from the task.

> Yes, too bad. I'm not so sure it's the ivory tower, if it exists, that
> we should be concerned about. It's the world our students must face
> outside the academy that concerns me.

I cannot agree with you here. Check out the following.

http://www.psyc.nott.ac.uk/aigr/papers/Living-Documents/paper.html

Tenison and Fuglevik developed the webby interface for MOOtiny With
collaboration in mind. The collaboration that takes place "out there,"
not in academia. Furthermore, most of Tenison's initial work was done at
ChibaMOO, a "social, experimental" MOO. They have been ever gracious and
accomodating to teacherly types. I think the *assumptions* that some
academicians make about what's "out there" are rather blind. I shoud
note that Tenison is in academia as well; MOOtiny is her dissertation
project.

> While I'm personally very far to
> the left of liberal, I can in good conscience encourage my students to
> resist a system that I'm not willing to resist because I'm safe in the
> academy. I guess I'd make a lousy general.

Maybe that's one of our difference. I don't marshall my studenst, nor
herd them (cept perhaps onna MOO :)) I try to meet them where they are.
Not easy I admit. I also try to get them to meet others outside the
boundaries of the class (university) walls.

> But before we reward students
> for doing things in the academy that will not serve them well outside of
> it, we should work to change the perceptions of those outside.

Students are better than we acknowledge at assessing their needs. How
often do we hear the old refrain, "I'm just taking this class cause I
have to."? And I am speaking as a student here as well. No matter WHAT
we do, our students will make certain decisions about what they need. If
we hold grades over their heads and such, they will go for that. If we
negotiate the terms of the collaboration together, I think we stand a
better chance of finding those common "rogerian" grounds that Suzanne (?)
mentions.

> now, receiving an A for borrowing the work of others, not matter how
> legitimate in that particular class room, is not view as proper outside
> the academy.

I guess you never had a boss come into your office and ask you to write
up a pamphlet that looks just like the one s/he has in *eir hand.

> You've given me an idea. I will acknowledge my third-grade teacher,
> Mrs. Riersgord, in my dissertation because she liked
> my poetry and encouraged me to write more, and I've never forgotten how
> good that encouragement felt.

Kewl. Mr/ Sereth let me plagiarize (pastichize) not just one but three
fairy tales and stage em. We fifth graders had a great year. Gotta them
elemetary school teachers.

Janet
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Janet Cross |
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