Super Sleuthing

Today I played detective, and while the results of my work made me very angry, I was pretty satisfied anyway.

I was checking homework, which was less-than-thrilling because it was an extra long assignment and an extra long weekend. I noticed that one student had submitted work that was not her own. I check homeworks for completion, then check off names as I go. For some students, I see the name and know it's perfect anyway. For some students, I need to make sure every question was completed, because they try to get away with stuff, and any incomplete assignment means detention. This student was inconsistent with her work, so even though I had a few pages to flip through, I was going to look at every single question.

The first thing I noticed was that the work was not in her handwriting. Her handwriting is not quite that of a middle-schooler, although she is new to North Star, so we've forgiven her as long as it's legible. This homework assignment, however, was written in perfectly neat, girly handwriting that not only didn't match this girls previous assignments, but also didn't even match the name on the top of the page.

Wow, she had someone else do her homework for her. What does that take? A really good friendship? Money? Candy? I'd probably do it for candy. I flipped through a recent quiz, and pulled out a couple of papers that had similar handwriting (I matched a funny "e"). In between answering questions in special ed math, I carefully compared papers to see who might be completing this girls homework for her.

Then I found the answer: at the top, where she had written her name, I noticed that I could see another erased name on top. Someone didn't do her homework for her; she had literally STOLEN someone else's work and passed it off as her own. I could see the other girl's name and team name, both of which had been poorly erased.

I was furious.

The girl was pulled out of class and given a two-day suspension. She spent the entire day sitting in the dean's office, alternately weeping and temper-tantrum-ing, coming out with such offensive remarks as, "I swear on my grandmother's grave that I didn't do it."

By the end of the day, we found she had stolen her history homework from another student, who was wrongly assigned detention.

I can't believe she would do that. She's one of our most struggling students, failing every course and often skipping out early on detention or homework center for a doctor's appointment or other event with her mother.

In brighter news, though, my day went smoothly. I was able to teach the students how to organize notes in the I, A, 1, a, etc. format, which is surprisingly difficult to teach. They picked it up like champs, though, and after my first class, my IL made me tape my next class to see how my improvements have changed the pace of the class and quality of student work. Okay!

Thanksgiving weekend was nice and family-y, with lots of food (and drink) and even a friend I hadn't seen in a while. I had my first pain-free week of 10 miles run, including an awesome 4-miler along the Charles River. I'm starting to make my triathlon plans for next summer.