The English teacher today works in an area whose very identity as subject for study in secondary schools is open to doubt. Increasingly, it is becoming clear that the values and beliefs which have formed traditional English, tend to devalue or at least to exclude the experience of most students. At the same time the tools of critical theory have been used in higher education to make the subject still more rarefied and more distant from everyday experience. In this radical exploration, Nick Peim, himself a practising English teacher, shows how the insights of discourse theory, psychology of language and deconstruction can be used on the material of modern culture as well as on literature, traditionally defined, and in oral work. Throughout, he writes in a style which even those with no background in critical theory will find approachable and backs his arguments with practical classroom examples.