<p>This is the logic my APUSH teacher has used with two of my essays.
She said that my essays were clearly beyond the spectrum of an 11th grader's abilities, and I must have gotten help somehow, so she gave me a 0 on both.
Is there some way I can appeal this?</p>
<p>Go to your principal.</p>
<p>Tried. I got deferred to my counselor who said she would talk to him. By the time she talks to him, however, it’ll be too late to change grades.</p>
<p>I’d get your parents involved and request a meeting. Do you have any earlier drafts of your work, any notes or other materials you can show your teacher? Do you have written pieces from past classes, particularly in-class work you can use of evidence of your writing ability, or at least writing style? I would definitely not let things lie. For one thing, by accepting the 0’s it might appear as if you’re accepting culpability.</p>
<p>Edit: I see you’ve tried to go through channels but haven’t gotten satisfactory results. That’s another reason to bring in the big guns today. I’m big on letting my kids fight their own battles, but if someone had unjustly accused my child of cheating I’d want the opportunity to go all mama bear on them. Parents can often get results kids cannot initially.</p>
<p>Ridiculous- I agree that you should go to the Principal, and get your parents involved if necessary. Nothing like putting a damper on a student’s creative work by telling them it is “too good”!</p>
<p>Sorry, cross-posted. I would have a parent call the Counselor since this will affect your grade. Are there previous teachers who might be able to vouch for your abilities or do you have any papers you have written previously that you can show this teacher?</p>
<p>I do have past teachers who I can talk to. Hopefully I’ll be able to fix this. :(</p>
<p>^^An english teacher who can speak to your writing ability would be good.</p>
<p>Get your parents involved immediately. The principal may want you to start with the counselor to try to resolve this, but that doesn’t mean you and your parents can’t go back to the principal if you don’t get satisfaction from the counselor. Your parents can also take it to the school board level if necessary.</p>
<p>There is ALWAYS a way to go back and correct grades - don’t let them give you that excuse if this isn’t resolved in time for the normal grading cycle.</p>
<p>Good luck and please let us know how this turns out.</p>
<p>Yes. If you have any rough drafts or research (random chickenscratch notes, anything), I’d find them and prepare them. I’d also be prepared to explain any of the ideas/logic that you used in the paper and offer to run the paper through Turn it In if you school has a subscription there.</p>
<p>I hate when teachers do this</p>
<p>parents. schools take parents really seriously. get them involved ASAP, and they’ll likely be able to get your grades changed (maybe even after it’s “too late”- the administration could do anything if it really wanted too)</p>
<p>Does your school use “turn it in . com?” That program would catch any plagiarism which is published. Any CC user with the name propinquity is capable of writing a fine piece. Your IQ is obviously higher than that of many, if not most HS teachers these days, and some teachers are not bright enough to get that. Get your parents involved immediately. Even if you picked someone’s brain on ideas and concepts which you had not considered (like a smart parent or professor-obviously not this teacher’s), those ideas could spark you own thought process. Do people think that information is always totally new or do not they not believe anyone young is capable of an independent and creative thought? What is education coming to? Why would teachers and professors even bother to spark critical thinking and creative thoughts, if they are going to punish you for writing about your thoughts? This really steams me!</p>
<p>Usually, when parents get involved, administration doesn’t want to deal with it, so they’ll respond, and respond quick to get the problem solved.</p>
<p>Perfect papers just do not appear. You should be able to show him a half dozen drafts detailing inception through - perfection. GL</p>
<p>Random idea. Write a 40-min AP practice essay in front of her face to show her your writing style.</p>
<p>This happened to me too, although just a government class and i told the teacher off till he changed the grade “temporarily until i see more of your writing.” You could sue. I mean the burden of proof is on them. That’s really outrageous when they take out their jealousies on the student. You just can’t let them push you around. Threaten legal action, call a state ombudsman or rep, whatever scares them into not holding you back.</p>
<p>Don’t you have written tests in class that would demonstrate how you write?</p>
<p>I’m pretty poor at timed writing so it’s not really a good measure. Generally the essays I write in class are still of quality, but not as good as the ones I write outside of school. The style is still the same, though.</p>
<p>We had a month and a half to write the essay, so that’s a LOT of time to refine and tweak sentence and paragraph structure. </p>
<p>This essay was pretty much my last chance to salvage my grade (I had a B+) so I worked REALLY hard on it. I was really proud of it.
I only have two partially completely drafts, but I do have around 10 pages of research notes I could show her, I suppose. I’ll see how things go. :(</p>
<p>Throw a little outrage in there, Propinquity. This action by your teacher is an injustice towards you. If she still refuses to give you the points you deserve, get your parents involved. There is no shame in doing so. Contact the principal, and if he/she is not willing to cooperate, start contacting even higher ups (superintendent, etc.). Someone in the system above this jealous, unreasonable teacher will respond appropriately and deal with the issue.</p>
<p>Hypothetical: do you guys think there’s any point at which it would be reasonable to assume that someone plagiarized because the quality of the writing was different from their usual stuff, even if you couldn’t find the document from which they plagiarized? The OP is a CCer and thus probably has awesome grades and the teacher doesn’t really have a case here, but what if s/he was a failing student or something? It just seems like some instances of plagiarism could be pretty hard to prove.</p>