Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Teaching our students...

I was thinking that there are excellent reasons to teach our students about copyright laws. I'm sure most students have heard about copyright because of copying music. And, I know that most teachers discuss plargairism on papers. But, have we taught them the skill of writing a paper with their own ideas so they're not plagarizing? I had a student take the DRA assessment and copy, word for word, their summary. I'm thinking that there was a child that needed to be taught "HOW". It's not an easy thing. I think we need to give students more time in learning what to quote, what to say in their own words, and how to do both. That could be so many lessons! I realize part of the problem is squeezing that into the curriculum. However, I think it's an important idea to squeeze in!

3 comments:

Lorena said...

I totally agree that more should be taught about copyright and avoiding plagiarism. I remember in high school working on papers and not completely knowing for sure how to AVOID plagiarism and so afraid my teachers might find something amiss in my work. I like the idea that we as librarians can share this responsibility of teaching and awareness with the language, reading and writing teachers...I hadn't thought of it much before.

Martha Nelson said...

I think it would have to squeeze in with writing research papers, since that's when this sort of thing comes up.

vbonnie said...

I agree, research papers are the place to teach it. Wouldn't it be nice if there was one way, tested, teacher and student approved, that was taught universally to help students cite sources and stay within copyright guidelines? At least when students are young? Then they could have a clearer idea, reconfirmed year after year. By high school maybe they'd be ready to branch out into different styles and other options. Hm...