In the academy, approaches to handling plagiarism vary widely. Some – for example, the approaches of programs that use turnitin.com or similar software – favor detection and punishment. Others view instances of plagiarism as teaching moments, while still others argue that a culture-wide change in values is required for plagiarism to diminish. Our discussion examines these different perspectives, tracing them to their disciplinary or structural homes, before suggesting a practical pedagogy of plagiarism instruction that reconciles the differing approaches.

The author reopens the vexed question of the use of literature in first–ear composition courses to suggest that reading and writing about literature can empower students to construct their own interpretations of cultural artifacts rather than deferring to canonical knowledge. Using his students’ work with Poe’s “Annabel Lee” as an example, he shows how such a practice can work if it places the work in a context appropriate to the literacies of first–year students and privileges the knowledge they bring with them to the academy.