This past week my class learned of the story of Anastasia -- the princess childhood of the Tsar's daughter, the Russian Revolution, the massacre of the royal family, and the mystery of what happened to Anastasia. They learned of Anna Anderson, who claimed to be Anastasia. Through her long life, she kept repeating her claim. Finally after her death, DNA testing revealed that she was a fraud.
But I am not writing about Anna Anderson; rather, I am writing about fraud. Yesterday, I wrote a "referral" for a blatant case of plagiarism -- one of my students had copied someone else's work and passed it off as h own.
[Note: I'm using h as a generic pronoun for him/her and his/hers and he/she.]
I met with the student and advised h to talk with h parents, so that they don't hear it first from the administrators.
The student was contrite and assured me that h would never do it again. I expressed my sorrow at the situation.
I told h that h grade for the assignment has be changed to a zero. H offered to redo the assignment; I said that the book on this assignment has closed, and the zero is permanent. To me and, I hope, to h, it serves as a reminder of what has happened.
The Anna Anderson film ended with Anna saying over and over "I lived this dirt.", claiming again and again that she had really lived the life she claimed. How sad. The DNA evidence revealed her to be lying: her whole life was spent being a liar, an imposter, a fraud.
Now those words seem more powerful, having witnessed the example of this young intelligent student, full of potential and possibility, paraded in front of me as, yes, a fraud... This plagiarism has marked this small part of h life as fraudulent. I deeply hope that h lives up to h words and does follow another more honorable path.
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