<p>I am currently a high school sophomore and my English teacher encourages peer revision on the essays she assigns us. I gave my most recent essay to someone to edit, and the person plagiarized 3 of the paragraphs without my knowledge. My teacher confronted the both of us and accused us of cheating, which completely shocked me, since I had no idea about this. The person told the teacher that I was completely not at fault, and my teacher acknowledged this. However, she said I still had to bear the full consequences. She gave me a zero on the assignment, a week's worth of detentions, and banned me from receiving any extra credit for the remainder of the year. </p>
<p>So my questions are:</p>
<p>Should I have been punished to the extent I was, even after my teacher acknowledged that I was not at fault?
What can I do to get my teacher to reconsider all these punishments?
Will this affect my chances into getting into any major colleges?</p>
<p>If the circumstances as you state them are true, go to your parents and ask to meet with the principle. If the teacher recommends peer revision and the other student admitted to being at fault then this seems over the top for a response.</p>
<p>I agree with Erin’s Dad, if the teacher has a policy of encouraging peer review before submission and with the other person acceptable blame for the plagiarism, you should bear NONE of the blame for this incident. I would, as suggested above, have my parents talk to the principal AND the teacher to resolve the problem.</p>
<p>I’m going to make an assumption here – the other student peer reviewed your work, but you did not peer review theirs (or when you did, the plagarized paragraphs were not in what you reviewed).</p>
<p>If this is the case, I agree with Erin’s Dad.</p>
<p>It is grossly unfair to encourage peer review then penalize the student when the peer steals your work. Were you my child, I’d raise holy hell on this one.</p>