« Teachers vs. Students | Main | Things I Hate »
January 14, 2006
Good deeds
Self-serving definition #372: Good deeds are deeds that it's fun to do. So today I went to Syracuse to do a workshop on plagiarism for about 60 TAs. What fun! They were very engaged, very thoughtful about the issues. I always learn a lot when I do these workshops, but this is the first time I've done one for TAs. In terms of what I got out of it, it was better than faculty workshops. TAs are close to the issues; they're still struggling themselves with issues of plagiarism, originality, attribution, and authority in their own writing. —As are all writers; but TAs are still in the trenches of these issues, so to speak. So they can talk about issues such as their concerns about channeling their advisors as they write their dissertations, and their problems navigating transgressive student authorship when they're teaching recitation sections of Course X and the instructor of record doesn't see the issues in the way the TA does. SU's committee on academic integrity is working to address this latter issue, but until that work is done (and to some extent afterwards, inevitably), it's a minefield. I mean, if a TA challenges the instructor of record, what happens to the TA's career in that department? Not a good scenario, and I'm glad our university is working on the issue.
Anyhow. As you can see, it was a fun workshop from my own perspective, especially because Tyra was there for moral support and a helping hand. (Now, of course, she'll undoubtedly find herself dragooned into more active roles in future TA workshops at SU.)
In a couple of weeks I do another TA workshop, this one for CUNY TAs. I hope it's as lively as this one was.
Posted by senioritis at January 14, 2006 07:47 PM
Comments
My daughter, who is a high school senior, and I talk about plagiarism a lot. It's a different kettle of fish for the cut & paste generation--the digital natives.
Most of what I write is in my blog, and my goodness, I do use a lot of others' work. One of my dissatisfactions is with my blog template--I haven't figured out how to set off block quotes more clearly.
Posted by: Liz at January 15, 2006 08:42 AM