How might we as English teachers encourage in our students primary acts of reading? First of all, however, we must ask, what is a primary act of reading? And further, what does the idea of a primary act of reading imply about such things as secondary acts of reading? But let me begin with a story. It's my first year of teaching, yet because I've been hired under emergency certification, I've had no real teacher training preparation. Of course, my classes are in constant turmoil as I struggle through the required curriculum. On the other hand, I think I'm right on track, for I'm simply teaching as I was taught. Thus I continue demonstrating to the rebellious juniors in front of me the exact and only meaning of every poem, short story, and novel. Yes, I am giving them everything they wanted to know, just according to Hoyle, or at least everything they'd otherwise find in Cliff's notes. Well, in January during a particularly low point of this spoon feeding routine, I enter the only class that seemed to be going fairly smoothly, and I'm confronted by one of my wilder students brandishing a Rolling Stones album. He appears to want some help, but better to get everyone seated and the daily lesson under control. Yet Bill, yes I remember his name to this day, persists. It seems that there's this poem on the back of the album jacket and, would you believe, its meaning is not all that transparent for this group of eleventh graders. Like there are some puzzles, some arguments even, regarding the poem's interpretation. Why not! I wonder to myself, and so I leap in. We begin to read the poem aloud as a class, first me, then Bill does his version. The words don't really make a whole lot of sense to me, so a