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[11thfloor]

I have a student who is dyslexic and so has a writer for her tests and exams.  I think this is fair, but as it happens, her test was nowhere near passing standard.  It was an odd mixture of wildly irrelevant and bizarre generalisations and very obvious points, with quotations added in randomly and out of context.  I spent a lot of time with her in my office going over the test, but when I would ask her what she had intended by some comment she'd made in the test she would say something like "I think my brain was just going to this place where I remembered something my child once said..." and would give a story that didn't seem to have much to do with what she had written.  When she was preparing for the first assignment she came to see me frequently, and I would talk over the question with her and help her plan an essay, but with little expectation that she would come up with anything passable.  Each time, she'd say she would take this to the Student Learning Centre which offers free tuition and support for students writing essays.  I was surprised when I came to mark her essay that it was without a doubt passable.  There were still a number of flaws and the approach to the question was quite a basic one but it was coherent, structured and full of relevant examples.  I am quite sure that the work has been done by a number of people coaching her at Student Learning.  If she went to someone different each time and they gave her some help, eventually between them they would have written an essay.  But can I do anything except pass it?  Eventually, she will graduate with a BA - but without being able to actually write or be able to put together an essay by herself.  I often advise students to go to Student Learning - but is she actually learning anything other than how to delegate essay-writing to other people? 

[polly_mer]

Start enforcing submission of a Student Learning Center report with every submitted paper that relies on that help.

I love our writing folks because they send those reports with details like "worked on main ideas", "worked on fragments", or "worked on organization".  I get those reports directly without the student sending them to me.  If your Student Learning Center doesn't do that, then you can still require the student to submit similar reports with signatures by whomever helped her.  Go talk to your Student Learning Center folks to find out the typical procedure they have for this or if you have to make up your own report form.

The student has responsibility for the form, but the Student Learning Center workers will check/initial the relevant slots and sign the bottom at the end of every help session.  It's thirty seconds per session so I'm sure they will do it if asked politely.

[11thfloor]

That's a good suggestion. But then, how do you take that into account when doing the grading?  Do you imagine those things that were helped with were still all wrong, or do you grade as if the submitted work were the student's own, and just note the assistance for some other purpose? 

[proftowanda]

That's a good suggestion. But then, how do you take that into account when doing the grading?  Do you imagine those things that were helped with were still all wrong, or do you grade as if the submitted work were the student's own, and just note the assistance for some other purpose? 

My question, too, and not sufficiently addressed by a form with check marks.  I think that I would have to ask the entire class (so as to not single out this student) to submit the drafts as they were prior to visits to the resource center -- and even then, I would have to hope that students actually are honest in doing so.

Too late now, unfortunately, for the OP to have all written work done in class.

[systeme_d_]

You cannot grade work that you imagine was different in earlier stages, or that you imagine might have been improved upon by someone else.  At least without proof of academic dishonesty.

Surely you do not have different standards of grading for people who use wheelchairs and people who do not.  (Or people who are hearing and people who are not.  Or people who use service animals and people who do not.  Or people who use the writing center and people who do not.)

You can only grade the work in front of you.  That's it.

[mistertheplague]

If she went to someone different each time and they gave her some help, eventually between them they would have written an essay.  But can I do anything except pass it?  

It's late, maybe I just need to rub the junk out of my eyes and reread what you've written until the sentiment expressed doesn't resemble something out of medieval Spain. Because so far what I'm reading is that you're considering whether or not to penalize a learning-disabled student for getting help from your campus writing center, because you equate her getting that help with soliciting plagiarism. Is that right?

If I've misconstrued your posts, I apologize. I really hope I have misconstrued your posts.

[proftowanda]

If she went to someone different each time and they gave her some help, eventually between them they would have written an essay.  But can I do anything except pass it?  

It's late, maybe I just need to rub the junk out of my eyes and reread what you've written until the sentiment expressed doesn't resemble something out of medieval Spain. Because so far what I'm reading is that you're considering whether or not to penalize a learning-disabled student for getting help from your campus writing center, because you equate her getting that help with soliciting plagiarism. Is that right?

If I've misconstrued your posts, I apologize. I really hope I have misconstrued your posts.

Reread the first part of the OP's post.  I do not see the term "plagiarism" in the OP's post.  I see concern that "she will graduate with a BA - but without being able to actually write or be able to put together an essay by herself."  Who does that serve? 

The problem is the striking contrast compared to the student's writing in class, i.e., on her own (and her inability even to satisfactorily discuss, in person, her out-of-class work).

We have had fora discussions on similar concerns about work in class and out of class by students with no disabilities, whatsoever. 

The general solution offered has been to have all or at least more work done in class -- if, that is, we are to identify whether and how well students have mastered concepts and skills expected in and from a course, so that, if they have not done so, we can help them gain that mastery.   What are we to do when students' work done out of class exhibits mastery that they then cannot replicate in work in class?   

[msparticularity]

 What are we to do when students' work done out of class exhibits mastery that they then cannot replicate in work in class?   

I think there are at least two points that are relevant here:

-There are always students who cannot think well when put on the spot (with limited time and/or under other pressure) but who can do well with time to go back and check sources, rewrite, etc.;
-Staff at campus writing centers are very well trained on issues pertaining to academic honesty.

At the most, the staff at the writing center is helping your student to better organize her thoughts and to convey them more clearly, OP. These are entirely allowable processes under academic standards for honesty for any kind of take-home work. If you think that having more time and space and feedback to develop ideas is a problem, then you need to devise measures based upon more in-class work for all of your students. Also, prepare for the screams of protest from many of your top performers.

[mistertheplague]

Reread the first part of the OP's post.  I do not see the term "plagiarism" in the OP's post. 

The OP wrote: "I am quite sure that the work has been done by a number of people coaching her at Student Learning.  If she went to someone different each time and they gave her some help, eventually between them they would have written an essay."

I teach at a small private university in the South; previously, I taught in a large university system in the Midwest. In both places, what the OP claims to suspect would clearly fall under the definition of academic dishonesty, if not plagiarism. I assume this standard isn't unconventional.

I see concern that "she will graduate with a BA - but without being able to actually write or be able to put together an essay by herself."  Who does that serve? 

Among the National Association of Writing Centers's operations guidelines is the following: "Tutors should be given guidelines for defining acceptable and unacceptable intervention in a student’s writing process."

My wife and I both teach college writing, though at different schools; my wife is also the director of her college's writing center. I can say with virtual certainty that no writing center advises its tutors to violate its institution's policies regarding academic dishonesty.

Regardless, if you, or the OP, or anyone else in these fora discussions you describe actually suspect that your writing centers are helping your students cheat in your classes, why in hell aren't you ringing the alarm? I know that if I had credible evidence that the writing center at my university was helping my students cheat in my classes, I'd be in my department chair's office waiting for him.

The evidence, however, that you offer to justify this concern is:

the striking contrast compared to the student's writing in class, i.e., on her own (and her inability even to satisfactorily discuss, in person, her out-of-class work).

Sure, the classic plagiarist's profile. But in my experience -- and talking with a number of colleagues at two schools in a lot of different departments more or less bears this out -- the students I've busted cheating were ones who would barely come to class. They weren't staking out my office waiting for my office hours to start so we could "spend a lot of time" conferencing about their crappy work.

From the OP's summary of events, here's what I got: the student bombed an essay exam, then bombed what read to me like an ad hoc oral exam during a conference.

(The scholarly research regarding essay exams as a pedagogical practice is contentious, to put it mildly. But that's another thread.)

So then this student -- perhaps the hardest working plagiarist in the history of higher education -- comes to the OP's office "frequently" to conference about her upcoming first assignment, an essay.

(If there are other faculty out there who's dishonest, cheating students are this conscientious, I'd like to know where they teach -- but I'll stop belaboring the point.)

Anyway, during this time, the student has been working with the OP (despite the OP's having "little expectation that she would come up with anything passable"), as well as the campus writing center on this upcoming essay. Upon reading the student's submission, the OP is surprised, not because the student has climbed out of the primordial ooze of sub-literacy to achieve the mellifluous fluency of a Carlyle, a Swift, a Dr. Johnson, but rather because her submission was "passable."   

The OP wrote: "There were still a number of flaws and the approach to the question was quite a basic one but it was coherent, structured and full of relevant examples."

So, the OP's (and perhaps your) response to this student going from incoherence on an essay exam to incoherence about her incoherence during a conference/ambush oral exam to middling mediocrity on a take-home essay is -- even after extensive work with the OP and the trained tutors at the writing center -- naturally, to suspect she and those same tutors are co-conspirators to commit academic fraud.

And here's what's truly appalling about this: Exhibit A for the prosecution is the fact that the student appears to have learned too much too fast. It couldn't be because the writing assignment used to diagnose her initial "deficiency" is at fault.

I don't get the impression that you or the OP are bad people. However, I think that treating our students like de facto criminal suspects when they get help with their writing and improve is bad practice. And the idea of closing students up in a classroom to do all of their writing, just so we can watch them, is plain nutty. The fact that someone would even have to write those last two sentences on a national forum for educators is itself unbelievable.

If the purpose is to help them gain mastery, on the other hand, as you have indicated, that's certainly a laudable goal, and I don't doubt you're sincere in your desire to help your students. But there are better ways to do that. Start by sending them to your writing center.



 

[quietly]

As others have said, you cannot penalize a student for using your writing center.  If they really are facilitating what you consider to be cheating, then that's their problem, and you should take it up with them--there's no way to fairly address this with the student.

But in terms of your learning objectives for the student, the reports from the center are a valid tool.  There should be a notation of every visit she makes to the writing center; at least you can find out if she really is using it a lot.  And you can directly ask her about this.  Then when she comes to go over these jumbled exam answers you can point out: "I know you're using the writing center a lot to develop these essays, where you do significantly better.  What kinds of strategies are they using with you and how can we get that to carry over into your in-class work?"

Or even--though this is riskier--"If you don't develop the strategies they're teaching you here, how do you expect to do well when writing is required after college?" This has to be tackled carefully, though, so at no time can the student claim you're telling her she shouldn't use the writing center or otherwise discriminating against her for her disability.  Best to focus on the first question.

Finally, it may genuinely be true that with more time permitted outside of class she can do better.   Which, frankly, is much more representative of the real world.

Q.

[11thfloor]

These are thoughtful responses.  My question about the purpose of monitoring the learning centre visits arose out of the same concern: I didn't see how I could take them into account when grading the essay.  This student is not a slacker.  So I can see my doubts must look odd.  The reason for them is that I have not been able to help her when she has come to my office.  She simply doesn't seem to understand my suggestions, or to be able to talk coherently about her ideas.  The idea of doing more in-class assessments is not an option - we have already set the assignments and in any case, I agree many students do better work when they have time to reflect and do more research and I would not change the requirements for a whole course (we have 120 students) in order to limit the help one student can receive.  It is true she may well be learning with help from the Student Learning support team who are professionals.  I guess if she has, she will do alright in the final exam and if not, she may fail the course anyway.  I think it is a good idea of quietly's to talk to her about the help she is receiving and see if she is able to identify the strategies they are helping her put in place when they work with her. 

[grasshopper]

-Staff at campus writing centers are very well trained on issues pertaining to academic honesty.

At the most, the staff at the writing center is helping your student to better organize her thoughts and to convey them more clearly, OP.

This is not completely accurate. The front-line tutoring staff at most writing centers is comprised of students. They're told not to write the students' essays for them, but in practice, they're students themselves, and sometimes there's a blurry line between "guiding a student" to find the answer for themselves and "making helpful suggestions" that ultimately result in the tutor effectively writing chunks of the paper for the student. Even though, as Mr. The Plague says, tutors are generally trained about when and how intervention is acceptable, it doesn't always play out quite as well on the ground. 


However, if this student has a diagnosed learning disability, chances are she's working with people trained to teach students with this LD. (At least, I hope she is).

It's no surprise that her exam work and prepared essay work are of markedly different quality. Students with learning disabilities will spend a LOT of time perfecting their work, and it's pretty common to see a big jump in quality from on-the-spot essays to prepared work. I don't think these are necessarily signs of inappropriate remedial help from the learning center. And if her essay shows a lot of weird tangents and breaks, but is better written, that sounds pretty consistent with her exam work: lots of weird tangents and breaks, but more poorly written, because she wasn't able to plan and edit it.

You also said that you were concerned that she might be receiving inappropriate help from the learning center because she doesn't seem to be able to learn from your suggestions in the office. That might have something to do with the way you're offering those suggestions. You might benefit from a quick trip to the learning center, to see if they can give you tips for working with this particular student. It might be something incredibly simple, and easy to implement.

[polly_mer]

The reason you want reports from the learning center is so that you have a basis for a conversation.

You can only grade what is in front of you, but if every paper comes with 8 reports where nearly every common problem has multiple people stating, "We worked on her with this", then you can have the conversation that goes as Quietly suggested.

Our writing center is staffed by mostly students, some of whom will basically rewrite the paper for a severely struggling student and who themselves aren't good enough to write an A paper in my class (that's a different, but real, problem here).  I want a report so that I can tell the student, "Look, this isn't enough of your own work under our plagiarism guidelines, just as using too many direct quotations is not.  You didn't intend to cheat, so I'm not busting you for plagiarism.  You can get help <explanation of appropriate help>, but you can't have someone else do the work.  That's not how this process works for your own benefit.  Leave this with me and you go write another one that is your work.  "

[seniorscholar]

Have you actually spoken with the director of the learning center about this particular student and discussed your concerns? Granted, I'm at a R-1 which has a well-qualified professional as director, an assistant director with training in learning disabilities and graduate students in various fields who have gone through fairly rigorous training as tutors -- but whatever the situation is at yours, I think you should have a talk about your concerns over this particular student with the director, who may be able to ensure that a limited number of tutors are working with the student, that they're appropriately instructed about "writing sections of the paper for her," and that the student has appropriate counseling for her learning difficulties.

[pedanterast]

If they really are facilitating what you consider to be cheating, then that's their problem.

No, it's everybody's problem.  It's a problem for the other students in the class if there is any kind of curving or relative grade distribution.  It's obviously a problem for the OP.  It's a problem for the university as a whole because it reflects on the quality of their graduates.  It's a problem for whoever hires the student.  It's a problem for the taxpayers who are subsidizing her education. 

Finally, it may genuinely be true that with more time permitted outside of class she can do better.   Which, frankly, is much more representative of the real world.

True, but someone who can do the same work in less time is more valuable in the real world.  And this situation, if allowed to continue, will make it impossible for the employers to correctly assess this student.  That will lead to inefficiencies such as hiring and attempting to train this student for positions for which they are ultimately not well-suited.