<p>My teacher told me there’s no proof that I wrote the notes before the essay was written; same with the drafts.
I don’t really know…she greatly dislikes my writing style, so that might be part of it. I’m going to try and talk to an administrator again.</p>
<p>There’s no proof you plagiarized either. She’s being pretty hypocritical with what she thinks requires proof.</p>
<p>The squeaky wheel gets the grease. </p>
<p>A letter from an attorney is one way to deal with a situation like this.</p>
<p>I don’t think you should need to “prove” a talent. Prove you’re great, invent something else,
what’s your next great idea? Oh, can’t do it? Must’ve belonged to someone else. Who?<br>
“Perfect papers just do not appear”…sometimes they do.
Get parents involved or past teachers who know you,— it’s hard to fight the system.</p>
<p>Get your parents to raise hell if they are willing. Try to do it yourself as well: just pop in to the GC office maybe at the beginning and end of every school day to keep it in his/her mind.</p>
<p>Propinquity- You must involve your parents and the administration with a very well worded email or letter to let the school know your parents mean business. If they are unwilling to be involved, I am not sure there is more you can do. The teacher has won, unless your parents address this with administration.</p>
<p>What a horrible teacher. She can’t accuse you of plagiarism unless she has proof (like a website that has the exact same thing as your paper) </p>
<p>Otherwise she shouldn’t be allowed to give you a 0.</p>
<p>Don’t let things slide! You’ll have plagiarism on your permanent record when you haven’t done it at all!</p>
<p>The same happened to me in sophomore year. A librarian tasked with shifting through the English classes’ annotated bibliographies (of all things) for a chemistry research paper gave me a zero on mine, because it was too well-written and “couldn’t have been [my] own work.”</p>
<p>I maintained that I had only followed the examples given in a research paper guidelines packet that had been provided. I asked for comments from my current and last year’s English teacher and they fortunately took my side. Ultimately, the zero was rescinded and replaced with a much better grade by a librarian of equal rank.</p>
<p>Of course, an accusation of plagiarism or underhandedness on an annotated bibliography is only remotely comparable to an accusation of plagiarism on a research paper. I wish you luck!</p>
<p>I am guessing that most high schools have such a teacher. I know mine does. Everyone’s essay is going to be better than their usual work when given 1.5 months to write it. That is why all of our college essays are typically above our normal timed writing styles. We have the entire summer. Give me a break teach! Sounds like she has an axe to grind with you. Get your parents, principal and the teacher together and tell them to produce some proof, if they can’t, give you the grade. If not, take it to the school broad. Just the threat of going to the school board, should stop this. </p>
<p>A couple of other things, check around with your classmates. Does the teacher have a history of this? Most students don’t like to confront teachers because they think they will suffer some retribution afterwards. Actually, most often it is just the opposite. They know you have their number so they leave you alone. If you haven’t already done so, make sure you put in writing (email) your conversation, etc with the administration and send them copies. Good luck.</p>
<p>P.S. I would not use this teacher for a recommendation for your college apps. :)</p>
<p>So what did you end up doing, OP?</p>
<p>Same thing happened to me-40 years ago as a freshman in h.s. I’ve never forgotten it-I’m a successful well educated adult and can see now that the teacher should not have been teaching accomplished students!</p>
<p>Actually, this exact same situation occurred with my dad when he was in high school in English class. He was accused of having a college graduate write his essay for him because of the advanced, college-level vocabulary (such as “meretricious persiflage”) and sentence structure (which obviously he was capable of using on his own - he got a 1560/1600 on the SAT and got into Harvard!), and so had to take a quiz on his own essay to prove he wrote it. He aced the quiz, of course, and the school apologized for accusing him of cheating and gave him a well-deserved “A” on the paper.</p>
<p>Maybe suggest you take a quiz on your own paper to prove you wrote it?</p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>So, I talked with my parents, and they agreed to call the administrators at our school, and threatene dlegal action if they ignored this issue.
There’s going to be a conference in a few days. I’m planning on asking a few of my old language art steachers to vouch for me. We’ll see what happens.
My teacher is absolutely livid since I’m questioning her authority. She is one of the most well respected teachers in our school, so I might have a hard time getting support.</p>
<p>What matters is that you stand up for yourself, no matter the outcome. It is a good life lesson, as many people stand by watching injustice because they are afraid of confrontation. And it is great that your parents are supporting you. It may seem like it’s “just a grade”, but small battles are good practice for the larger ones that are sure to present themselves in your future. You deserve to clear your name. Good luck!</p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>Okay, this teacher reminds me scarily of Miss Caroline from To Kill a Mockingbird.</p>
<p>I’d like to see this paper… I would take that teacher to court for ageism. He should have no reason to be so dubious as to perform such action unless he’d observed previous content that would prove his allegation. Even with evidence of some form of deceit, his decision should be to subtly confront you or commend you for a significant increase of diction or whichever elements you used to make such an over-impression.</p>
<p>Are you guys allowed to write your essays at home? Our AP teacher requires us to write all essays in class, so there wont’t be any plagiarism. Show him all of your drafts and pre-writes.</p>