While in grad school, I was a Teaching Assistant. Mostly I taught Freshman English, where I didn't assist a professor, but taught the classes on my own.
I taught two sections a semester. It is the wise student who, when "borrowing" the paper her roommate had written the previous semester, inquires as to the name of the roommate's instructor. It is the foolish student who does not do so, and turns the paper in to the same instructor, thereby getting a failing grade in the course, and academic probation for herself and her roommate.
On the first paper one semester, I gave a student a "C." Not horrible, but not a great grade, either. She came to talk to me about the paper. In the middle of her heated defense, she blurted out, "But my high school English teacher gave this an A!" Not plagiarism, as she did write the paper herself, but not meeting the requirements of the assignment, either, as she was supposed to write a draft and do some other things. We had a little talk about that. She did turn out to be a good student.
The kid who walked into my office on a hot, sticky day and moved the student chair from the side of my desk to right next to mine, adjusted the fan so it would blow directly on him and not on me at all, sat down, propped his elbow on the desk, leaned into my face and said, "So, what can I do so you give me an A in this class?" He was quite unhappy when I adjusted the fan and told him, "Do all the work and come to me with any questions." Apparently, he'd been hoping to write a song and play the guitar and get an A in English class.
The kid who brought me a draft of his paper during office hours. I was 95% sure the entire paper was plagiarized, but couldn't prove it then and there (early days of the internet, no computers in the entire department--proving this would have meant a trip to the library). So instead I questioned him closely on where he had gotten his ideas--ideas never mentioned in class, or mentioned using completely different terminology, pointed out flaws, and told him that the paper didn't meet the assignment--he was supposed to compare and contrast two works, not write about just one. Basically trying to show him that I suspected the paper was not his, but without coming out and saying that (we weren't supposed to accuse anyone of plagiarism unless we had certain proof). He submitted the paper anyway, and I found almost all of it was from Craigs Notes. Then I had to deal with the kid crying buckets in my office about how he "didn't mean to do it."
One semester I was a TA for a large, 500 person, lecture course. All the TAs had discussion sections on Fridays, with lectures from the professor on Mondays and Tuesdays. Many students opted to miss the Friday sessions, as they did not affect the student's grade. Come the first exam, the professor explains the exam, tells the students to turn their blue books into their TA, and leaves the auditorium. All the TAs gather at the edge of the stage, to monitor the students.
Cue one of the first students to finish. He's walking down the aisle to turn in his blue book, when a slightly panicked look comes over his face. He walks up to one TA--"Are you my TA?" he asks. He'd never been to a discussion session, so he didn't know what his TA looked like, or even what the TA's name was. And of course, none of us knew if he was in our sections, because we'd never seen him, either. We had a stack of 70 or so "homeless" exams that we had to spend half an hour sorting out at the end, because the kids never went to their discussion sections.
