ABSTRACT
Texts work to position their readers and the ideal reader, from the point of view of the writer, is the reader who buys into the text and its meanings. Another way of saying this is to say that all texts are positioned and positioning. While distance is important for critical reading, it can also prevent readers from engaging with a text, from trying to make sense of a very different world view, from grappling with a dislocating discourse. Critical reading, in combination with an ethic of social justice, is fundamental in order to protect educators own rights and the rights of others. In reading texts that offend teacher, the discourses which structure educators own beliefs and values give teacher the critical distance needed to read against them. Every text is just one set of perspectives on the world, a representation of it: language, together with other signs, works to construct reality.
