Plagiarism & Academic Integrity

Many teachers might think of plagiarism as a black and white issue. A student turns in a paper consisting entirely of material copied from other sources, or they download a file from a paper mill and submit it. True, these cases exist. However, most cases fall into other categories that require nuance and discretion.

International Students

Consider an international student who learned how to write in a different culture with different stances toward authorship and originality. In some cultures, it makes perfect sense to weave sources into your writing verbatim without direct citation. Some international students even admit freely that there's no sense in trying to rephrase a passage from an author that already sounds eloquent and persuasive. They might also assume that their readers will automatically recognize this source material, eliminating the need for Western citation principles. In these cases, students don't simply earn a free pass. But teachers should treat them as learning experiences. If you've ever studied abroad, you know the difficulty of adapting to different environments and educational contexts.

Underprepared Students

Likewise, think about students from under-funded school districts who never received adequate writing instruction. A surprising number of students often explain that their teachers explicitly taught them how to "write fast" by cutting and pasting sentences and phrases from many sources and stitching them together.

Writing experts often refer to this kind of plagiarism as "patch writing," in which students string together language from a wide array of sources without providing accurate citation information. Technically, they have committed plagiarism, but not willfully or knowingly. Their actions stem from lack of knowledge, not an intent to deceive or game the system.

Plagiarism Vs. Citation Problems

Teachers can often mistake problems in citation formatting or sloppy scholarship for plagiarism. You can tell the difference by looking for attempts to cite sources. Misplaced quotation marks, missing attributions or page numbers, and failure to indent block quotations often look like plagiarism on the surface. In fact, the student at least understands the importance of attributing sources, but they're still struggling with the tools to do so.

These kinds of cases don't always merit disciplinary action. You can lower a student's grade, or even assign a failing grade, for severe problems with citation. But these kinds of issues don't require a plagiarism report.

Severe Cases of Plagiarism

Some cases of academic dishonesty do require reporting. They include cases where a student has demonstrated a willful attempt to deceive their instructor and submit a paper they didn't write. For example, a student submits an essay which turns out to be work from another student, or downloaded from a website. In such cases, the student has made a deliberate attempt to present someone else's work as their own.

Context can help a great deal in determining the appropriate response. Students who commit accidental plagiarism due to citation issues, or lack of knowledge, usually don't have problems turning in work on time or attendance.

It's important to think about your own instruction and the student's background as part of the situation. Not every student completes Composition I or II at the university. Many students transfer credit for either or both courses from other institutions. Therefore, it's entirely possible a student hasn't been taught effective citation or authorship practices.

You may know the student finished a composition course at this institution. In that case, they have been taught the importance of authenticity, original research, and source attribution. Composition II especially focuses on academic writing, research, and citation. A student may still be struggling with the finer points of citation near the end of a college writing course. However, they should definitely understand the importance of authenticity. They should also understand basic citation practices, as well as the role of summary, paraphrase, and quotation in effective academic writing.

Plagiarism Detection Software

Many teachers use software programs like TurnItIn to help reduce and deter plagiarism. These tools can help, if used wisely. These programs essentially act as warehouses of text. They run algorithms to scan student papers against every other essay submitted to them. Some programs also search and compare text from student papers to Google Scholar and the Internet at large.

A detection program can essentially reveal the amount of language that comes from other sources, including material that has been cited effectively.

Programs like TurnItIn are best used as learning tools. Instead of simply making students use these programs, incorporate them into your classroom activities. Show students how to use detection software to analyze their own writing.

Preventing Plagiarism

Teachers shouldn't rely on programs alone to reduce plagiarism. Instead, try to craft meaningful assignments that students will want to complete. Overly prescriptive or generic guidelines and topics will usually result in higher plagiarism, because students simply want to "get it done."

It's also important to scaffold assignments with appropriate readings, activities, and discussions. Assignments that aren't embedded well into instruction time will also result in higher plagiarism. Students will procrastinate, then stress, then look for a quick solution.

It's always a good idea to remind students about the importance of academic integrity, regardless of the course you teach. Make sure students have the resources and materials they need to complete research projects and cite sources.

Duplicity and Other Forms of Dishonesty

Another case of academic dishonesty involves an attempt to submit work from one course for another course. Some academics call this "recycling," and others "double dipping." Not only do journals and book publishers frown on this practice, but it can seriously damage a scholar's reputation.

Sometimes, a student might have a good reason to use the same paper for two courses. They might be working on a longterm project, or an ambitious paper that combines knowledge and methods from two courses or disciplines. For example, a student might want to write one 15-page paper on a topic rather than two completely separate 10-page papers. Or the research they're doing may apply to two different projects.

When that happens, the student should consult both teachers and ask permission to submit one project for both courses. If one teacher agrees, that's usually sufficient. Even if a student makes a mistake and doesn't think to ask, the instructors might consider the overall quality of the work and give the student the benefit of the doubt.

In conclusion, many issues can arise when dealing with different definitions of authorship. Violations of academic integrity always involve clear evidence of an attempt to deceive others in order to somehow circumvent course requirements.

Teachers should definitely report these kinds of cases. However, many times a student has simply submitted work that doesn't meet your expectations. You can always grade student work for citation issues that don't necessarily qualify as plagiarism.

FERPA & Confidentiality

Keeping A Grade Book

Every teacher needs a system for tracking and reporting grades to their students. Spiral-bound ledgers and calculators used to fill this purpose. Now, we have digital tools to make computing, storing, and reporting grades easier. Whatever system you develop, make sure you record your grades for every project. Reporting grades not only helps students, but also reinforces your curriculum. More than 5-6 weeks without a grade report will start to cause anxiety in some students, apathy in others. You want everyone, even high achieving students, to know where they stand.

Some teachers use Blackboard's grade book feature. This tool offers a relatively simple and user-friendly method of updating grades in real-time. Whenever you enter grades for a project, students can login to see it. You can also set up a final grade column that updates as a "running total," meaning that it projects an anticipated final grade based on work completed so far.

Various plug-ins and programs exist for electronic gradebook keeping. You can find them easily online. For example, Google Classroom and sheets offers Chrome browser plug-ins that you can search for by clicking the "add-on" button in your file menu.

But you don't have to rely on Blackboard or other programs. Some teachers prefer to maintain their own grade books in Excel and Google Sheets. Doing so gives them more control over data management. It also removes some of the difficulties and glitches of online grade book programs.

The Basics: Scales & Categories

Before anything else, you should establish your grade scale and categories. The composition program at UA-Little Rock uses a simple 10-point scale for final grades. You should state this in your syllabus:

90-100	A
80-89	B
70-79	C
0-69	NC

Next, decide on your grade categories. Most courses offer grade categories for participation, major papers, and short work. Some instructors have found it useful to assign a point value to every major and minor writing assignment. For example:

Grade Categories
Participation
Major Projects  Synthesis Essay Research Project Infographic Annotated Bib Reflection Essay
Final Portfolio
Peer Reviews
Writing Journal

As you see above, some teachers assign a separate grade for each paper and the final portfolio. Students must submit drafts of papers and receive feedback on each of them. They revise these papers and include them in a final portfolio, which is evaluated and graded separately. The final portfolio should always account for a large percentage of a student's final grade--at least 20 percent. The final portfolio grade depends on the strength of final drafts, but also the quality of their reflection essay and web design.

You can and should award points for early drafts of major papers, and you should also require students to revise their work for their portfolio. Revision is an essential outcome for college writing courses. The final portfolio grade helps to ensure this process.

Total Points vs. Weighted Grades

Now you need to decide whether you'll use weighted grade categories or a total points system. Both systems are valid, but fall to instructor preference. Some teachers value the simplicity of the total points system. They assign points to projects based on their overall importance to the course. They calculate a student's final grade simply by diving points earn by points possible.

Grade Categories
Participation	100 points
Major Projects (100 each) Synthesis Essay Research Project Infographic Annotated Bib Reflection Essay	500 points
Final Portfolio	200 points
Peer Reviews	100 points
Writing Journal	100 points

Total Points

1000 points

In this model, a student who earns 887 of 1000 total points earns a final grade of 87, a high B. A student who only earns 732 of those points earns a mid C, still passing.

Weighted grades work in a similar way, except they use percentages. Teachers allot the same total points to each grade category, and then simply weight each category. For example:

Participation	10%
Major Projects (10% each) Synthesis Essay Research Project Infographic Annotated Bib Reflection Essay	50%
Final Portfolio	20%
Peer Reviews	10%
Writing Journal	10%

You should also state this information clearly in your syllabus. Transparency in your grading scale and categories helps students, and also helps you in the case of grade appeals. All students deserve a clear outline of how to earn the grade they want.

Managing Grades in Excel & Sheets

Excel probably offers the simplest and most straightforward tool for managing grades. It's even easier than online tools like Blackboard, and less likely to crash. You can store Excel files in secure locations on your computer and cloud storage (Google Drive) and access them from any device. You can also use Google Sheets, which has almost the same interface.

In Excel or Sheets, you can create a separate sheet for each student by clicking the "add sheet" function at the bottom of your screen. It appears as a plus sign. Label each sheet with students' names. When you've finished, create rows and columns for each major assignment that include the grade and points possible. Here's an example:

Assignment	Grade	Points Possible
Participation	85	100
Short Assignments
Topic Proposal 1	10	10
Topic Proposal 2	10	10
Peer Review 1	8	10
Peer Review 2	8	10
Summary Activity	8	10
Annotated Bibliography	10	10
CRAAP Test	10	10
TBA
TBA
TBA
Writing Log I (50)	45	50
Writing Log II (50)
Synthesis Essay (100)	85	100
Research Paper (100)	85	100
Infographic (100)	95	100
Reflection Essay (100)
Digital Portfolio (300)
Total Points Earned	459	520
Current Grade	B	0.8826923077

This setup makes it easy to update grades on a regular basis and send updates to students. In the "Total Points Earned" column, you'll insert a simple sum function that adds up the student's earned points and the total points possible. The function will update automatically as you enter more grades.

In the "Current Grade" row, you'll insert another function that instructs the cell to divide points earned (459) by points possible (520). The formula looks like this:

=B24/C24

This formula tells the grade cell (.8826...) to divide cell B24 by cell C24. That function generates a grade percentage that will also update automatically as you enter new grades.

Reporting Grades

At least once midway through the semester, you should issue a report to students with a summary of grades, including any missing work they earned a zero for. As you've seen, you can do this easily in Excel or Sheets. Ideally, you'll issue grade reports every 4-5 weeks in addition to written feedback on drafts. Not only does this help students, it also helps teachers to have a detailed and organized account of everyone's progress.

Building Your Course Schedule

A detailed course schedule serves as the backbone of your course. Making one before the semester starts will help you and your students stay organized and on track. Students greatly appreciate a timetable that tells them clearly what work to do when.

The idea of planning your entire course may sound overwhelming, but certain strategies make it very manageable. The earlier you begin, the better. Making a schedule has a range of benefits. Foremost, it  prompts you to give serious thought to your assignment sequences and readings. Here's what a given week on a course calendar appears:

A course schedule will lay out readings and topics for each week, with dates that align with the university's course calendar. A complete schedule may take several pages. You can see two finished examples of course schedules here:

Brian Ray's Course Schedule 

Sarah Prickett's Course Schedule

The Composition Director keeps a syllabus and course schedule on file for every section in the program. You can always ask for more example syllabi. You can also ask other writing teachers to share their schedules with you directly.

Many teachers keep their schedules online. Doing this makes it easy to make updates and corrections. Although some teachers prefer print copies, this can pose problems if you need to make adjustments. You don't want multiple versions of your syllabus for students to manage. It can cause confusion.

You can save time by entering the text of your syllabus into the LMS itself. Having to constantly upload new versions of your syllabus as file attachments may become cumbersome.

If you're a new teacher, try to have at least 6-8 weeks of your course planned before the semester starts. You can make adjustments as you go. Make sure you announce any changes to readings or due dates ahead of time, both in class and on your LMS. It's usually fine to change readings a week ahead of due dates, and you can push back deadlines. Students don't react well when deadlines are moved up, or you make major changes on short notice.

Where do you Start?

A typical writing course takes place over 16 weeks. Divide that into 4 units of 4 weeks each. Think about what you want students to accomplish in each of those units. This will help you begin to conceptualize your course.

Your course should give students at least three major writing projects, with time at the end of the semester devoted to reflection, revision, and portfolios. So that means three units will revolve around one major, over-arching assignment. The fourth unit (last four weeks) will revolve around the course portfolio, reflection statement, and any final presentations associated with it.

Think about the major assignments, and use them to organize your content. For example, many Composition I courses begin with a literacy narrative as the first major assignment. That project will take four weeks to do the following:

• Introduce the assignment and give students time to brainstorm some initial ideas. (1 class day)
• Read and discuss literacy narratives from reputable, published authors. (3-4 class days.)
• Complete short assignments and groupwork, like descriptive paragraphs or introductions. (1-2 class days.)
• Workshop and edit sample essays. (1-2 days.)
• Engage in peer review on rough drafts. (1-2 days.)
• In-class writing time (1-2 days).

Breaking down your units in this way will give a clear skeleton to build on. You may not know exactly what readings you want students to do yet, but you at least know that they need a week to read samples, so they can develop a concrete sense of the expectations and conventions behind literacy narratives. Assigning different authors and styles also helps them see how to bend or even break some of these conventions.

Consider one more example, the research-based project. Imagine you plan to ask students to learn and write about an aspect of Arkansas history, or even write a profile of an historical location or landmark. You would break this unit down in ways similar to the literacy narrative project:

• Introduce the assignment. Discuss the purpose of historical research.
• Read 3-4 examples of local history projects.
• Give students short, in-class writing projects on local history topics.
• Introduce students to specific library resources, archives, and collections on state history.
• Schedule a librarian to help with database and collection tutorials.
• Have students give mini-presentations on their history projects.
• Invite a guest speaker to talk to your class about historical research, or a key moment in Little Rock/Arkansas history.
• Peer review workshops.

These activities and lessons could easily take 4 weeks or more. Planning and incorporating them into your schedule ensures that you have enough time to cover these lessons. It also lends organization and structure to your class. Imagine trying to plan all of this on the fly, mid-semester. It could not only add more stress to your prep time, but also lead to anxiety and a general sense of anarchy.

The more time you invest into planning up front, the more time you'll have for preparing your courses on a more detailed level. First semester teachers often underestimate the amount of time it takes to manage a course, prepare class notes, organize activities, and make handouts--all while conducing regular business like their own coursework, grading papers, and managing emails. A well-planned syllabus and course schedule becomes a life saver when we become busy with our jobs, as well as the surprises often thrown our way.

List of Journals

College English
College Composition and Communication
Written Communication
Technical Communication Quarterly
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Composition Studies
Journal of Basic Writing
Writing Program Administration
Journal of Writing Assessment
Assessing Writing
RTE: Research in the Teaching of English
Community Literacy Journal
Journal of Advanced Composition

Enculturation
Kairos
Computers and Composition
Computers and Composition Online

Journal of Second Language Writing

TESOL Quarterly

Journal of English for Academic Purposes
Journal of English for Specific Purposes
World Englishes

Rhetoric Review
RSQ: Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Peitho
Harlot
Advances in the History of Rhetoric
Rhetorica

Teaching Philosophies

The statement of teaching philosophy serves a crucial function in your professional development. If you plan on a career in teaching, you should begin drafting one midway through your first semester. It will evolve as you continue to explore composition pedagogy and apply ideas from scholarship to your teaching. Ultimately, you'll use this document when applying for positions, promotions, awards, and other opportunities.

Many teachers continue to revisit and revise their teaching philosophies throughout their careers. The process of articulating our values and practices helps us to refine our materials and approaches in order to better serve an ever-changing student population. It's not unusual for veteran teachers to track significant changes in their philosophies over time, in response to shifts in demographics, technologies, and trial & error.


A standard teaching philosophy in rhetoric and composition runs for about 2-3 pages single-spaced (1000 words). Despite its name, this document should focus on your teaching practices and the reasons behind them. In other words, you're explaining what you want students to learn from your course, and how you help them develop their writing abilities through different assignments and classroom activities.

Drafting your first teaching statement can seem like an overwhelming task, especially for first-year teachers. However, the process is challenging for anyone.

You can begin brainstorming in a number of ways. First, you should probably read or re-read two important documents: The WPA Outcomes Statement and the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing.

Together, these two documents articulate key concepts that any college writing course should impart to students. They also provide you with the vocabulary to begin explaining what matters most to you as a writing teacher. For example, Framework for Success identifies seven habits of mind:

• Curiosity
• Openness
• Engagement
• Creativity
• Persistence
• Responsibility
• Flexibility
• Metacognition

The WPA Outcomes Statement 3.0 identities essential characteristics of writing pedagogy:

• Rhetorical Knowledge
• Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing
• Writing & Composing Processes
• Knowledge of Conventions

First-time teachers may want to focus on some of these traits. As you become immersed in composition theory and pedagogy, you'll encounter more specialized terms such as transfer, genre uptake, code-meshing, translingualism, and many others. But a successful statement of teaching philosophy can simply focus on the basics.

Your statement should begin with 1-2 paragraphs that introduce a central concept like metacognition. Briefly define your term in relation to your teaching, and why it matters most to you and your students. For example, how does cultivating metacognition in college writers prepare them for success in their coursework and their later on?

Next, you need to begin explaining specific classroom activities and readings to illustrate how you adapt this concept your teaching. This section serves as the main body of your statement. Here, you'll provide at least two substantial paragraphs describing lesson plans, readings, and student responses to the material. You should provide some detailed accounts of 2-3 lesson plans. Think about this section as if you're explaining some material to another teacher who might try to adapt it to their own classroom.

Once you've described some classroom activities, proceed to a discussion of 1-2 major assignments that derive from the in-class work and lesson plans. Outline your expectations to students, including your grading criteria. You want to make it clear how completing these major assignments reinforces students' acquisition of habits of mind or aspects of writing. It's also a good idea to add a sentence or two explaining the time frame for completion for these projects, what kind of feedback you tend to give, and other scaffolding that helps them complete their work. Finally, you can identify any recurring struggles or challenges that students have, what advice you impart to them, and a sense of what students think about their own work or evolution as writers that occurs over the course of the semester.

Your final paragraphs should summarize and reiterate the importance of the key terms you introduced and explored. Here, you might also mention any portfolios they ultimately submit and how that helps to cement their learning. You can end your statement by outlining any plans you have to continue improving these assignments for future semesters.

Consider this outline for your teaching statement:

• Introduction that introduces 1-2 key over-aching concepts from the WPA Outcomes Statement, or Framework for Success.
• Body paragraphs that discuss in-class work, activities, and lesson plans that model these concepts for students.
• Body paragraphs that describe 1-2 major assignments that develop and reinforce your key concepts.
• Body paragraphs that focus on how students develop as writers, what challenges they encounter, and how you help them complete these projects.
• Closing paragraphs that outline your future plans regarding these lesson plans and assignments, and a re-emphasis on why they matter to you and the students.

Despite their value, the teaching philosophy remains one of the most challenging and frustrating to write in any educational field. On the one hand, we feel compelled to describe our teaching in ways that emphasis its original, fresh, or innovative qualities. And yet search committees also read statements of teaching philosophy in order to gain a sense of an applicant's familiarity with their discipline's best practices. As such, they expect a degree of uniformity and common knowledge.

These goals may seem in conflict with one another, but you can learn to balance them with practice. For example, consider how a successful teaching philosophy would discuss the writing process. True, a teacher applying to a composition program should include some discussion of drafting, peer review, and feedback. However, the writing process has become standard practice in our discipline. So discussing it explicitly in the foreground doesn't make much sense. A teaching philosophy that only discussed a teacher's approach to the writing process could seem limited, incomplete, and convey a sense of inexperience. It's best to make passing references to these practices and embed them elsewhere. 

The teaching philosophy is a demanding genre, and in some ways restrictive. Search committees want to see some degree of innovation in your teaching, but they also want applicants to demonstrate their knowledge of best practices. You should exercise some caution if you plan to introduce any concepts or practices from other disciplines. Make sure you stress how such ideas will help students become better writers and communicators.

Try your best to keep the focus on writing and communication. Many teaching philosophies can veer off topic by discussing aspects of education in general, or become mired in details of classroom management. You don't need to devote much or any attention to issues such such as attendance, participation, or disciplinary problems. Focus on your values and practices as a teacher, and how they align with the discipline. 

You may ultimately develop several teaching philosophies over the course of your job searches and broader career. Keep them on file for reference. Many teachers keep one or two "generic" teaching philosophies, and then write specific ones adapted to the principles and practices of the programs where they wish to work. When you begin searching for jobs, you should always visit a department or program's website and try to learn as much about their practices as possible. You want to describe your teaching honestly, but you also want to convince search committees that your practices align well with theirs. In other words, your teaching philosophy explains how you're a good fit.

Many teachers will share their philosophies if you ask. You can keep a folder on your computer with several examples. Read them several times. There's no shame in borrowing ideas from others and adapting them to your own teaching. Likewise, you can imitate the tone and structure of other statements as you work on crafting your own voice. All of us began our own teaching philosophies by reading and studying those from our mentors.

Grading with Rubrics

Many teachers use rubrics to make their grading and feedback to students more fair, transparent, and efficient. Making a rubric for each assignment helps us think through our expectations for assignments at a concrete level. Without them, we risk offering subjective feedback that doesn't address key elements of writing. Even experienced teachers can stray from their main goals due to stress and grading fatigue.

Imagine this scenario: A teacher receives a paper with more grammatical issues than they expected. The teacher becomes preoccupied with commenting on language issues alone, and forgets to provide substantial feedback on claims and evidence. Later, the student offers a revise paper but still receives a low grade. While the grammar improved, the teacher now focuses on different criteria that wasn't offered on the first draft.

Rubrics minimize the chances of this kind of inconstancy.

Making a rubric offers a range of advantages. Articulating your criteria for evaluation helps you further determine the goals or outcomes of your projects that students complete. Sharing rubrics with students as part of the assignment guidelines also gives them a clearer idea of what you want them to do.

Rubrics fall into two main categories, holistic and analytic. A holistic writing rubric provides benchmark criteria for a scale of grades or scores. For example, you could create a holistic rubric with an overall score of 1-9. Each score would include a list of criteria for a paper (or portfolio) to meet. See the example below.

You can find a more contemporary holistic rubric on the AP Language and Composition website. This one follows a scale of 1-9. Visit this link to view.


Analytic rubrics allow teachers to prioritize and weight criteria for papers. They contain a number of items (usually 4-6) with a point value assigned to each. Instead of a single score for the entire paper, analytic rubrics offer a maximum number of points, distributed among the rubric categories as the instructor sees most appropriate. Common rubric categories include:

Thesis/Main Argument
Claims and Evidence
Organization and Cohesion
Citations and Formatting
Clarity (Grammar & Punctuation)

Using an analytic rubric, a teacher awards points for each item, then tabulates the total score. A student's final grade for a paper then becomes the ratio of points earned to points possible. For example:

You can follow a few simple steps to create your own rubric for each major writing assignment. First, read through your course objectives and your program's outcome statement. Think about what outcomes this assignment addresses. From there, identify at least four main traits you want to see in each project--ideally one for each program or course objective. Next, you'll need to scale these items. Think in concrete terms about what qualifies as a successful project.

Imagine you've asked your students to make a podcast based on their research paper. This may seem like a hard project to evaluate using a rubric. However, a successful podcast has a number of key elements. Most of them begin with a clear introduction of the speaker and the topic. The speaker identifies their purpose and establishes the context for their podcast--in essence why certain people should listen. It marks off a clear audience, especially regarding how the issue effects certain groups of people. Next, a podcast might include interviews with experts, or with ordinary people in order to illustrate commonly held views. They identify each speaker clearly and explain their background and its relevance. Finally, an effective podcast has production value--clear audio, smooth transitions, and strategic use of music and control of background noise. Each of these criteria would make their way into your rubric.

Both holistic and analytic rubrics can help teachers and students succeed in their coursework. You should think carefully about how either one addresses your own teaching style and grading preferences. Some experts have argued that analytic rubrics tend to emphasize product over process. Meanwhile, critics of holistic rubrics have argued that they don't give teachers enough control over the individual parts of essays, and that analytic rubrics permit them to emphasize higher order concerns over lower order ones like grammar, punctuation, and spelling. It is your choice what form of rubric you use. It's best to stay consistent within a single semester. Alternating between holistic and analytic rubrics could confuse students.