The English teacher today works in an area whose very identity as a 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 become, in the context of higher education, the means to make the subject still more rarefied and more distant from everyday experience. In this 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 from the news media to advertisements and pop songs, 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 should find approachable, and backs his arguments with practical classroom examples.