Ch. 5 Reflection - Bryan Pechtl

Ch. 5 Reflection
What interested me most about this section dealt with the social and ethical issues of using technology, particularly on page 87 with it discussed the ability to copy and paste. Students are only too willing to copy and paste, it seems, to get the assignment completed. They don’t necessarily see the assignment so much as a learning experience as much as something to get done and out of the way. The book discusses how it is our job as teachers to “guide your students in understanding the difference between paraphrasing and plagiarizing.” It continues that the focus needs to be on the writing process in an effort to minimize plagiarizing.
An idea to integrate this material into the classroom is to do as the book says: focus on the writing process. I recently did this with my eighth graders as we completed a webquest on the Boston Tea Party. We did the rough draft, then we did two peer reviews to enhance readability. Only then did the students get to hand in their paper for grading. Students were also graded on their efforts to assist their peers with constructive criticism.
One challenge about technology integration would have to be working with those who struggle with any writing assignment. I have a number of lower-level students and they struggle to understand reading a two sentence paragraph, much less the concept of paraphrasing. One student does simply cut and paste and we go round and round. Even when I tell that student I really want his words, he still borrows heavily from other’s work. The shift from seeing writing assignments as a learning exercise rather than an assignment to simply get done is at times daunting.