Critical literacy critics and teachers focus on the cultural and ideological assumptions that underwrite texts; they investigate the politics of representation; and they interrogate the inequitable, cultural position of speakers and readers within discourses. To understand more fully the implications of concerns about literacy for secondary English teachers people need to consider in greater detail the model of literacy teaching and learning upon which recent initiatives and directives have been based, alongside other possible models. As English teachers people may need to shift our perspective a little, however, and glimpse both wood and trees in order to play a real part in the transformation in literacy teaching centred on what actually happens in the classroom. A literate act is an attempt to create meaning, and in doing so, reflects is itself shaped by literate, social and cultural practices. At the same time, literacy is also a personal, intentional action, an attempt to understand, express, explore, communicate, or influence.