Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Trinculo from Tampa Puts a Snowflake in the Plagiarism Pokey.


So even though I give my snowflakes a ten minute lecture on plagiarism the first day of class with follow-ups during the weeks prior to the first essay's due date, complete with the promise that I will fail anyone who does it, one snowflake decides to try me.

At least it was for the first paper and not the last.

I fail her, just as I swore I would, and she appeals because she felt our meeting prior to my notification of her failure didn't meet her criteria for meeting-ness.

The Director of Writing Programs explains that even if the meeting didn't meet her exacting standards, she still fails, because her paper was more internet than her own, even if we credit her with every single a, an and the.

Snowflake appeals to the Department Chair, who tells her the same thing. She appeals to the Dean, at which point I was allowed to stop driving 25 miles on my day off to sit in a useless meeting.

She's probably writing the Governor right now, a month after the end of the term.