In The Literature Workshop, Sheridan Blau sets out the admirable goal of developing a way of teaching literature that gives students "the kind of experience teachers have” (2). Blau forwards the workshop model, a process-oriented practice commonly used in writing pedagogy, as an approach to helping students learn the skills of literature interpretation. The process includes text selection, an initial reading of the text accompanied by a reflective free-write, small group discussion, and large group discussion.  The examples of literature he uses to model are very well-chosen. With the modeled discussions, teachers can anticipate possible avenues that discussion might travel and therefore go into discussion confidently.

Although we find the literature and discussions fostered by the workshop model to be lively and interesting, the open inquiry found in his literature workshops is in conflict with the authoritative tone Blau often uses in his analysis and the strident claims he makes about the value of teaching literature.  The Literature Workshop can be a resource to a teacher with any level of experience beginning a literature workshop, but secondary teachers with years of experience might be put off by Blau's condescending presence.  Blau acknowledges this tone.  "I am an academic," he reminds the reader.  "I simply write in the language I ordinarily use in my professional life . .  a language acquired gradually through (my) participation in an academic community" (160).   The problem is, Blau's academic community is not the same academic community that secondary teachers are a part of.  Blau's academic community expects him to write as the authority while the experienced secondary teacher wants to hear ideas from an authority.  Also, while Blau claims that he wants to put interpretation into the hands of his students, it is he who ultimately usurps the student's interpretative efforts by presenting his own interpretation at the end of the discussion.  In conjunction with framing many of his questions in a way that presents them as having a correct answer, by presenting his own interpretation at the end of every discussion, Blau could shut down the reading process rather than enhance it.