Outside View from Inside the Classroom

A couple of weeks ago I had this, what I thought, brilliant idea – have my students write blogs of their own on social or human geography issues (Here’s the link – Students With a View). This would serve two purposes. First it would break up the day to day class of memorize this and memorize that. In doing that it seemed like I was just creating sheep. Creatures that follow my every whim but have no thought of their own. Second it would help and motivate them to improve their writing. A skill that most had very little of. Well two weeks letter, the writing is coming around and they are starting to think on their own, but another problem has occurred – cheating.

They see nothing wrong with copying others words and arguments and passing them off as their own. They think that if the piece together a bunch of different people’s ideas, it then is their own. WRONG!!! The point was to get their thoughts down on paper, not somebody else’s.

HELP ME!!! How do I get them to understand that there is moral wrong here, they don’t see it that way, and get them to grasp the seriousness of the problem.