Using an Escape Room to Teach Plagiarism
Over the past few years, I have seen a major interest in Escape Rooms, especially their use in classrooms. I have always been intrigued by them, but I didn’t feel confident implementing one in my own classroom, until now.
I wanted to find a fun way to review plagiarism with my tenth graders, a topic that teachers should discuss every year, but that students often find boring.
Using an escape room to teach plagiarism was fun, low stress, and very easy to implement!
While designing this product, I created a story that focused on the skills that I wanted students to walk away with:
A review of what plagiarism and paraphrasing is
Recognizing different types of plagiarism
Identifying ways to avoid plagiarism in their own writing
My Plagiarism Escape Room only took about 20-30 minutes of class time. It was easy to prep as a warm up and left time for a whole class discussion and a secondary activity.
Utilizing an escape room allows students to work at their own pace within their groups. They can discuss and interact with their peers and stay engaged throughout the entire activity.
While they work, I have time to walk around and interact with each of the groups, answering their individual questions regarding plagiarism. This helps give a sense of whether or not students are understanding plagiarism!
This is a resource that can be used year after year, with any grade level.
Student Feedback!
At the end of the activity, I asked students what they learned and what they liked as our exit ticket/debrief. Here are a few of their responses...
“It was fun instead of having [a] lecture so I would like to do something again like this.”
“This activity was pretty good because it taught us something important in a fun way instead of doing boring notes.”
“I learned that plagiarism comes with a lot of consequences and it's better off to not plagiarize because it's stealing someone else's hard work that took a lot of time.”
If you want an easy, fun, and low stress way to discuss plagiarism, check out the Plagiarism Escape Room on my Teachers Pay Teachers store! Let me know how it goes in your classroom.