Copyright/source citation mini lesson
Overview
This is a short lesson that uses music to drive home the importance of citing sources. This lesson is part of a media unit curated at our Digital Citizenship website, "Who Am I Online?"
Digital Citizenship
Learning target:
Students will cite their sources and avoid plagiarism.
ISTE: 2c. Students demonstrate an understanding of and a respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.8
Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
Vocabulary:
Intellectual property
Citation
Copyright
Patent
Trademark
Plagiarism
Bibliography
Activity:
- Have a song playing that includes samples (pieces of other artists’ music) as students come into class.
- Ask students to brainstorm songs they listen to that include sampled music from other artists, listing them on the board.
- Ask students: How are musicians able to use samples of other peoples’ music in their song? Give students a chance to think and discuss with partners before sharing as a class. Answers may vary, but steer the discussion toward the idea that musicians and their publishing companies own the songs and that permission is required before someone can use samples, payment of a portion of royalties for the sample, and a citation of the sample source.
- Introduce the term, “Intellectual property” and define it as a work or invention resulting from a creative process for which someone holds a copyright, patent or trademark (These words may need to be defined as well). A portion of musicians’ income comes from the intellectual property they own--which is their songs.
- Ask students: How do these ideas apply to you when you are conducting a research assignment? Before a whole-class answer, allow students to think, pair, and then share.
- While student use of articles and texts to inform research and knowledge does not require permission of the writer or royalty payments, students are required to cite their sources through at least a bibliography, with quotation marks around direct quotes and in-text citations to identify the source of the quote in the bibliography. In this way, students give credit to their sources and avoid charges of plagiarism.
- From here, how to cite sources can be demonstrated. For example, if students use a database for information, the teacher/librarian can show students how to find citation information in the database. Also, tools like EasyBib and BibMe, can be demonstrated for sources that do not include ready-made citations to copy and paste.
Check for Understanding:
Students will demonstrate mastery by including bibliographic citations in research assignments. (A separate demonstration would be needed to show students how to do in-text citations, if this is required.)