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A MORAL TALE

A true story

Once upon a time there were two students called Abdulla and Ahmed.  They were good guys and had lots of friends. However they had a lot to learn about studying.

Their teacher asked them to write a book review as part of their portfolio in the Diploma year. In the car park before they went home they had a chat.   " Let's copy a review from the Internet, I'm sure we can find a description of a book there. Our teacher is a nice friendly woman She'll never guess that we haven't written it ourselves and it will save us lots of time. We're both smart guys and she'll think we have worked really hard.

 So Ahmed scanned a huge piece from the back of the book, cleverly used his skills to change the font and make it look personal. Abdulla searched the Internet to find some writing about a famous book, downloaded it and did much the same.  The next day they met in the car park on their way to class and showed each other their work. . They looked at the text, full of complex sentences and long words and they felt very pleased. This must be what their teacher wanted and it had been so easy!  . Why an English person couldn't have written better.

The next part of this tale is very sad, so be prepared!  The teacher was not overjoyed; she was upset and dismayed. . She sat down with Abdulla and Ahmed and explained to them that what she wanted was    

THEIR OPINIONS

 THEIR FEELINGS

THEIR DESCRIPTION

She would have been happy with half the text in 'THEIR OWN WORDS' 'It took the guys a few minutes to understand why the teacher was upset. She pleaded with them to write it again in their own words, even if there were mistakes. The important thing was that he should be expressing their own thoughts. If they made mistakes in spelling and grammar, it was still better than copying long words that they didn't really understand.

The end of this story is a happy one. Abdulla and Ahmed   listened to the teacher and took on board what she had said. Before they   went back to Baniyas that evening, they took out two books from the library. Two days later they were both ready to write about what they had read. The books they chose were not difficult to read, but they found the time even though they had morning jobs and afternoon study. This time, what they wrote was much shorter, about 125 words. It didn't have such impressively long words in it. However, Abdulla and Ahmed understood every word. In fact they even enjoyed writing and felt quite proud of what they had done. What is even more important, the teacher was really pleased and they both ended up with very good marks!!!

p.s. the names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent!!