I have never taught a class where plagiarism would be a concern and I don't intend to tell other teachers how they should run their classes. I think every teacher has the right to expect students to do their own work, if for no other reason than that the rules against intellectual dishonesty are fair and reasonable and explicit.
On the other hand....

In my long academic experience I have come to know a fundamental truth about professors and teachers: that many of us---even we soi-disant progressives---are, all protestations to the contrary, among the most conservative, hide-bound, change-resistant, even lazy people of any profession. This comment is not directed specifically against English and Social Studies teachers. There are still departments of Physics in prestigious colleges which offer obsolete classes in FORTRAN programming and numerical methods, classes obviated by fast computers and inexpensive (and even free) calculation software. These classes are only offered, as near as I can tell, because their instructors learned the same material while they were in college and are convinced of its eternal value (not to mention how trivial a teaching assignment it is after one has taught it for 3 decades).
As I've made clear, I'm in no position to help English teachers work out these issues; they will work these things out on their own, and the rest of us will support their demands for integrity. But I'm not the first person to imagine that the venerable "paper" has, in the age of Wikipedia, outlived its usefulness. And I wonder if we, as teachers in the premier lab school of this solar system, couldn't put our heads together and find a modern way to get students to think critically and independently.

Thanks, Ms. Linder, for your thoughtful and forthright commentary. You inspired me to write my own blog entry on the topic.

As for the long-term viability of the venerable "paper," I don't think the format of the product is itself the problem. And I disagree that assigning papers in today's world is anachronistic in the way that teaching FORTRAN is. That said, there are papers and there are papers. If a student is asked to write a "report" that is no more than a reporting (or pasting) of facts and figures, then, yes, we are looking at an obsolete skill (unless we're trying to prepare students to write for Wikipedia). But if we're trying to teach students to learn, for example, how scientific communication works, then they need to know not only how to do the physics (biology, chemistry, math, etc.), but also how to explain the way the new knowledge relates to previous literature, fits into the larger scientific discourse, has or does not have logical flaws, and what, if any, impact it has on society. All of this activity involves reading, writing, and critical analysis, and therefore will be subject to the efforts of plagiarists.

I could go on, but I already did in my blog posting. I'd love to hear to some student perspectives here!

I enthusiastically support Ms. Linder's thoughts on plagiarism and the others' thoughts on the value of the essay or research paper. To say these exercises are outdated is kind of like saying critical thinking is outdated. Despite all the technological advances from cuneiform and the alphabet through the printing press and the computer, the one thing that hasn't changed appreciably and still needs constant training and maintenance is the human brain. In order for it to be able to think on its own, it needs to seek out and critically analyze others' ideas, not just cut and paste them. Until someone devises a way to feed Plato and Shakespeare to our brains intravenously, we'll still have to actively research and pursue those ideas. Whether that's through clay tablets or electronic data banks, our brains still process information in the same way they always have.

I see a good bit where Ray is coming from. I do not think he was insinuating that writing in a way that "encourages students to think critically and engage intellectually with a given topic, art form, or set of ideas" should be dismissed from the curriculum. Rather, in bringing up wikipedia he may have been pointing to a fundamental shift in the nature of research with the use of the internet. While, as the librarian points out, it has always been possible to plagiarize in a similar manner as lifting from wikipedia using books, never has it been so easy to obtain facts, analysis, and research on topics from the most bane to the most fanciful, starting with wikipedia and continuing to JSTOR and such for further reading. So one key didactic element of the 'paper' has been made trivial: how to research.

While Ray didn't suggest it directly I think he was encouraging thought on how else to imbue the same qualities as the paper of old without giving students internet access, and come up with ways that make it impossible to plagiarize, which is going to be increasingly difficult to catch as the internet continues to expand as well as outsourcing resources. For example, in-class essays along with critical analysis questions. Students could even be provided with a number of professional critiques of literature with which to respond to and analyze, so there could be no doubt as to where information was coming from. This would teach the same skills as traditional papers, minus the research. It would take up too much class time to administer tests which allow students the same time to ponder and come up with original thought as is allowed by an out of class research paper. However, if given the option I think many students would not object to coming in either after school or on weekends to write monitored essays if they knew it was only going to be a solid two-three hour chunk and then they were done as opposed to writing long papers over periods of weeks. Students could also be told essay questions in advance to allow additional time for thought, so long as the writing is done in class.

I actually did not intend my comment as a general criticism of the written word. I had in mind Ms Linder's relatively narrow target: students who spared themselves the effort of poem/novel/character explication by paraphrasing or even copying analysis from the web. I'm sorry I did not make that clear. I'm pro-essay, OK? But y'all are engaged in a battle every bit as futile as that waged against music file-sharing, with the difference that corrupt music industry executives are forced by profit motives to change their business model, whereas otherwise dedicated and forward-thinking teachers acknowledge no pressure to change their teaching model.

Even with the clarification that I like essays---the issue being what we write on---I don't anticipate a lot of enthusiasm for my views. That's fine; I'm happy to work in a school where traditional methods and rules are valued. But it almost doesn't matter what we think, because our views are coming with us to the grave. The future of intellectual ethics will not be determined by the tiny number of elite scholars who write original analyses of over-analyzed literary classics; it will be determined by the overwhelming majority, a majority dismissive of old lines of critical authority, a majority which evidently believes that the nearly-unhindered flow of information is some kind of natural right and absolute good, a majority that---very sensibly---takes as its starting point whatever's out there already.

If anything, the "democratization" of information makes instruction in critical thinking even more important. And that is where we teachers come in...but on whose terms? Now, I should have known not to mention FORTRAN in public, but here we go: FORTRAN is not a synonym for "dinosaur." It is not the moral equivalent of the electric typewriter I used in college or the radio ("contains seven transistors!") I owned as a boy. Some bleeding-edge physicists still use FORTRAN because for certain tasks it is the best tool available. In truth, any decent numerical methods class can teach scientists a lot. But the physicist who expects undergrads to ignore the computational revolution really needs to renegotiate her role. You all believe that a teacher who asks his students to ignore the huge and immediately-accessible volume of wisdom, commentary, even pointless blather on literary staples should not be renegotiating his role? In other words, shouldn't both instructors start asking new questions? We will agree to disagree.

In the mean time, Ms Linder is correct: stop cheating. Under no circumstances may authors steal text or ideas without attribution; even I regard this as inviolable. The hide-bound rules are changing, but they're not changing fast enough to save anyone from a dismissal hearing. Oh, and dude? I am like so old-school.