Saving them until later was part of the plan, but now it’s caused a problem I didn’t anticipate.

I saved marking some book reviews from my night class until the last minute so that I can get a sense of how my students’ writing has improved over the course.. The results have been mixed. Some students have improved, some have not, and one’s writing is awesome because he just decided to plagiarize.

The student in question, who’s already been caught plagiarizing, decided to copy his book reviews from different websites rather than write them himself. This means he has also copied his way out of a recommendation from me. That said, I’ll chat with my Night Boss before making that decision (I could phrase it as “nice guy but has some problems following instruction”.) (Note: that pretty much explains my life.)

One other student plagiarized a paragraph, but everyone else seems to have gotten better.

Tomorrow, I’ll pass everything back, which means I’ll be breaking some bad news. There will also be some good news. There will also be a few things I’ll keep to myself, but that’s fodder for another post.