Back to the topic, thanks!

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Back to the topic, thanks!
By Curious

Macavity, thanks for your explanation. I was just curious. Back to the topic. I, too, teach 6th grade and we are learning about this very thing. I've approached it with lessons on paraphrasing and outlines. I am modeling
a lot about how to paraphrase (using practice worksheets and sentence strips) and writing outlines for just about everything we read.
For example, I taught a lesson, with lecture, on Picasso and the students did an art project. Then I followed up, in stations later, with the students rereading and discussing a Picasso bio, then outlining the information. For homework, they were

to write a one page essay (in their own words) from the outline.

As for Social Studies, learning to read text and write a report from it is not easy and 6th graders still need to know how and what it should look like. We have read our unit on Mesopotamia, outlined each chapter, and then wrote a mini report whole class. Yes, we all have essentially the same report, but as we were writing the students gave suggestions about how to write each sentence.

For further SS lessons, students will write mini reports using the outline and paraphrasing techniques learned in class. As for research at home, students will hopefully have a more solid foundation on how to research and write a report.

Hope this helps to give you some ideas to prevent plagiarism. Perhaps, too, students should turn in a print out or cite their sources when turning in their rough draft. Just a thought.

Plagiarism is definately a problem and there will be students who will try to get away with it. We just need to continue to model, support, and as we are doing teach proper writing. And, as the poster is attempting, give consequences to those who break the "law."