Stories of Prodigal Suns

Astral Facts, May/June 2012

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Stories of Prodigal Suns

Recently I heard someone discuss the story of the “prodigal son” and how it has implications beyond its “conventional” context of parent and child.   In Confucian theory, the five great social relationships, in the order Confucius put them, are parent: child, elder sibling: younger sibling, husband: wife, elder: younger (community) and ruler: subject (politics).   The fourth relationship could be seen as the relationship between boss to employee, coach to athlete, teacher to students, etc. with the latter relevant to us in the education business.  That seemed like a good topic for the final Astral Fact of the academic year.

Then one of my students wrote his research paper on the topic of storytelling as a cultural aspect that needs more emphasis in modern culture.  His point was that traditionally, cultural values are established and reinforced by the stories of and in the culture.  He saw the current cultural system of people writing to be paid for expressing their personal views as detrimental to cultural values, as the motivation is centered on recognition for the individual’s fame and fortune first without long term consideration of consequences to the culture as a whole. 

His observation was that people were more interested in getting attention to themselves, which often required them to “act weird” and break social norms by coming up with whatever would make them like “brilliant suns” in the eyes of their audience.  The student proposed having a network of salaried national storytellers, a sort of “poet laureate” group, who would have the role of maintaining the stories that illustrate the core cultural values. 

It was an interesting argument, and those people expressing “opposing views” noted that the current trends do represent cultural values and the “turmoil” he was observing is the story of the day.

Perhaps we don’t always recognize how the “stories” of our daily lives help us understand the issues of our times.  Here in the Humanities Sciences, we try to look at the stories as more than just stories.  Often the real life observations are beyond what we could “make up” on our own.  Reader’s Digest is popular for putting those snippets of life in the little spaces at the end of the longer stories, and they help us understand the longer stories.  For example:

Ready for the “hard luck” plagiarism story?

I give four essay assignments for my English 101 classes, with the final paper due the last day of classes.  After the first paper has been returned, I tell students they can individually opt for “portfolio” assessment rather than just the standard grade for each assignment.  The portfolio due the last day of classes would still have the fourth paper as well as one of the first three “as is” and another of the first three “as is” with a revised version.   (Thus their grade is based on only the three assignments in the package and one of those first three disappears).

After the third paper has been done, I reduce the workload: standard grading will be based on the best three papers (making that fourth paper optional) and the portfolio is reduced to any two of the three items previously designated (which also makes #4 optional).

One of my students (a non-native speaker) turned in her portfolio Monday with revisions of two of the first three papers.  I looked at the two original papers and kept the best for the “as is” grading.  As I read the revised paper of the other, an analysis of “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, in parts the syntax wasn’t consistent with the rest.  Sure enough, most of one of her paragraphs is cut and pasted from the sample paper on the story from 123helpme!.com .  So I printed out a copy, highlighted it and the corresponding section in her paper, and included a note that she wasn’t getting a passing grade on the assignment.   She got the portfolio back at the start of our final exam Wednesday.

So she sent an email after the exam to tell me:

i understood wrongly from last time in class the class we just had to choose any of two of the papers we have done and we did not have to do #4 according to that so i did not send it even tho i was working on it  however i would be gratful if i can send the paper #4 if u please let me to do so. i have my own difficulties to understand english sometimes even tho im trying my best to do so..

Apparently my answer was going to be yes because 50 minutes later (before I had read the first message) I received a second message with the paper attached:

hi

i hope you consider replacing this essay as #4 due to my lack of understaing and also because i did not clearly understand what you meant last time cause i already preparing to this paper then i thought you said its ok you can choose two of the perivous papers and fixed them both but i did not know if i had to do it as proflio style u mentioned before. i would be gratful.

thanks

Again, in her attached essay the syntax is a bit smooth (worlds apart from the email messages), with the phrase “how does a schmuck become a saint” at the end of the first paragraph.   Not only does that phrase show up on a simple Google search, but an article with the same title and same opening paragraph shows up!   And the final paragraph from the article is also the beginning of the conclusion paragraph in the student submission.

So instead of having a reduced grade on this assignment, the student fails the class!  Apparently, the principle is not being grasped.   I sent her an email to let her know.

Thursday: 

I had decided not to give her a failing grade for the class, and I had submitted a 1.0 (D), which was less than the 2.0 she would need to move to the next level composition class.  This would require her to retake this English 101 course. 

Not knowing this, in the evening the student emailed to ask if she could do still another paper to try to replace the original plagiarized one. I told her that this was not possible because she had already had a second chance.  I told her although I had given her a 1.0 “D” for the class rather than the failing grade mentioned previously, she would still need to retake the class from another instructor.

She responded about the plagiarism on that second paper:

Mr.lowe

please consider i have no clue about the plagiarizing that or attention to that this is what happened i been having difficulties to understand the writing class since it started but so i asked my friend yesterday to help me out with some of it i have no clue it was copied from another place yet i did add my own words and my own to that thats what happened and i would like if you consider a chance for me and help me through my difficulties and misunderstanding to it im really sorry for it. 

And so the story continues.  We couldn’t make this up, could we? 

Obviously, someone needs to adjust the picture going in the head of the student.  I tried to do so with my response:

If your friend wrote your paper for you and then you added some of your own writing to it, that would be cheating.  It doesn't matter if your friend copied it or not.  You still knew that you didn't write it!  You knew that I wouldn't accept the first paper because you had copied it.  Why would you think it would be okay to have another person write part of the paper?

W. Lowe

Hopefully, the student will recognize the implication of what’s been going on.  As one colleague put it, “It would be funny if it weren't for the fact that the student sincerely believes not understanding English justifies cheating and [this] should persuade you to give a better grade!” 

However, it still isn’t penetrating very deeply.  Even though I have informed her that I had not submitted a failing grade, the student’s latest response is:

i asked her for help i did not for help i had that on my mind i was talking about religion and its facts she did not wrote the paper she helped me with some but i did not know that help was from outside sources thats why i just told as it happened and i be grateful if u consider a second chance for me to pass 

thanks 

If we stop and think about it, we have two tragedies here:  first is the lack of depth of understanding on the part of the student.  In spite of how detailed I was in covering documentation and avoidance of plagiarism in class on three separate occasions, the student didn’t understand the concept very clearly.  On top of that, all my explanations have fallen on deaf ears, for the student is still pleading for me to overlook this and give a “reduced” grade, even though I already told her I am not giving her a failing grade, merely a “D” that will not allow her to move to the next class without retaking this English 101 course.  For this student, the actual learning is not the issue; the main focus is just on getting a “good” grade.  It makes me wonder how many other silent voices hold this same view, but we don’t realize it.

The second tragedy is in how much time and effort I have spent dealing with just this one student and her “issues” over the issue.  This is time that I could have spent helping other students (or even taking time “off” from student needs to spend time with family).   Those opportunities have been lost forever.

Perhaps by documenting and sharing the story of this journey, it can help others on both sides of the teacher’s desk.  Then we can work on those three relationships Confucius says should be at the top of the list, once the sons and daughters are back on track.

Walter Lowe
Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.