Back to basics

So often I try to encourage my student's independence by letting them take control over what they want to learn and do their own thing. An example of this is the Matariki project I have set. This week we are celebrating Matariki at school so I am letting the students choose what they would like to research or do in order to celebrate Matariki. I have told my students that they need to put all writing in their own words. So what do I see? Students that have appeared to directly copy and paste information off the internet and then pass it off as their own. And this is not the first time it has happened. Who's fault is this? Mine, of course. My students lack the skills needed to carry out research- the ones that are copying and pasting are the ones that cannot identify key points, summarise a text, that cannot infer text, and struggle with their comprehension. While I still maintain allowing my students to direct their own learning  is a good idea, they need to have the skills in the first place in order to be independent. Looks like tomorrow I will be working with the majority of the class to focus on research, key ideas, summarising and synthesising.