Me, Plagiarize?

What's this? Posting two days in a row?  That's unheard of.  Well, almost.  I'm sure if you go back far enough, you'll find posts on consecutive days.  That doesn't count Decembers when I make it a point to post (almost) every day.

Today, after reading Sandra Cisneros's "Eleven" to each of my classes, I composed this rough memory of a time where I was wrongly accused.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to unearth the ending from the recesses of my mind.  Oh, well.  I guess as I get closer to being "old," I'll have to live with some of that.

Long ago in a galaxy not so far away, but far enough to be called foreign, I was in 5^th grade.  And I believe that it was around this time that I discovered, or maybe rather rediscovered that I was a good writer.  Or at least I could become a good writer.  This was the unique year that I was placed in a double classroom: one large, open room with two teachers who taught two separate classes at the same time—Mrs. Knopp and Mrs. Curry.

It was the language arts/spelling/social studies/reading teacher Mrs. Curry who acquainted me with the word “embellishment” and told me not to do it when writing factual paragraphs.  But that’s a different story.

On this particular occasion, we were placed in groups to do research and present on an aspect of life during the Civil War.  My little group of four was assigned to cover life on a Southern plantation.  I don’t remember two nondescript members of the group that met at my house to construct and paint a model of a plantation, but Paul Gonzales was in my group—one of two pariahs in the class of around fifty students.  The untouchable proved his “worth” that day as he spilled paint, flattened log cabins, and made our plantation look like it was recovering from a class three hurricane.  And to top it all, he wiped the paintbrushes (not quite dry or clean) on Mom’s good towels.  She erupted—after everyone had gone, of course, so in turn I was fuming at Paul in my passive-aggressive sort of way.

When it came time to present, I took over and spoke right over top of him.  There was no way I was going to let his geeky awkwardness stand in the way of a good grade.  Our presentation turned out pretty darn well, or at least I thought so.  That is, until Mrs. Curry pulled me aside and told me she was lowering my grade because I wasn’t a team player.  I stood there at her desk with my mouth hanging wide as an empty bear cave.  My jaw almost hit the floor like a Saturday morning cartoon.  I received a C- while the rest of my group got B’s.

There was, she said, one way I could make up my grade.  I needed to do an additional report about the Civil War.  She handed me a list of topics that hadn’t been used from presentations.  I don’t remember the entire list because I chose the first item: Confederate money.

I race to the library after school on my bike.  I pored over encyclopedias and raided the 970s at the back of the nonfiction section.  I read and I read for hours.  My grade’s salvation depended on it.  After I had squeezed every last ounce of information about Confederate money I could out it the available resources (which honestly weren’t many), I slaved over the typewriter as best as I could.   Without ever having taken a typing class, I felt like a chick pecking the dirt, slowly, unsurely, not really knowing what I was doing, only to mess up dozens of times to start over.

Mom made a late-night run to the store to buy a posterboard.  I stayed up well past my bedtime drawing currency examples; my allowance not ample enough to make photocopies then.  When it was finally put together, I collapsed—assured that I had done excellent work.  Tomorrow would redeem my standing with my teacher.

Before the first bell rang the next morning, a red poster with a typed report and illustrations lay across Mrs. Curry’s desk.  By the end of the day, I had learned a new word: plagiarism.  However, I must say that as a champion for the squelching of plagiarists, I did not cheat.  And although I have often been tempted to do so, I have always cited my sources.  Mrs. Curry just didn’t believe that a fifth grader could write so well, nor did she check my bibliography.  She confronted me while the class was browsing in the library.  I stood, monster movie books in hand, crying, begging, trying to convince her that I hadn’t cheated.  I went back to the classroom early.  Alone.

The dénouementic details of this tale are fuzzy.  I don’t think Mom got involved, but if I look at my report card from way back then, I ended up with the grade I wanted.  Plus, I don’t remember ever writing another report for Mrs. Curry again.

Some might think this would cause me to go softly on plagiarists.  False.  Today, I swat plagiarists like flies on a molasses-coated tabletop.  In elementary school, students should be taught what plagiarism is and held to high standards.  By the time a student reaches middle school, he should know that plagiarism ranks right under murder and is punishable by flogging in some countries.  Writing is a difficult process; imitating style can be beneficial for aspiring writers.  Wholesale copying, though, should not be tolerated.  I learned early to cite my sources.  Like my friend Andria says, “Words are free.  Copying phrases and sentences is plagiarism.”

With the advent of cut-and-paste features, it is too easy to cheat.  However, it is also easy to be caught.  Do I catch every cheater?  Unfortunately, no.  However, when I do, I make sure that the writing doesn’t match anything else she has written for me in the past.  I make sure that I ask for references (and check them if I suspect).   I don’t rush to judgment like Mrs. Curry.  If there is proof, the plagiarist gets squished—“just like grape,” as Mr. Miyagi relates to Daniel in The Karate Kid.