The banking model of education views students as empty passive minds to be filled by the teacher. As Paulo Freire perceived the model, the teacher is seen as possessing the currency of knowledge and distributing it to students. In the changing dynamics of the college literature classroom, the relationship between teacher and student should be more like a complex dance, in which teacher behaviors are responses to student behaviors. In two sophomore literature classes presented at Clemson University, instructors sought to subvert the role of the teacher by dividing the class into small reading groups, whose members choose and research their own readings and present their findings to the group. The teacher's role was to facilitate learning, not provide it. Some students either underreacted or overreacted to the new teaching model. Instructors realized later that they sometimes responded to student challenges authoritatively, in keeping with the banking model. The teachers also saw that students would have benefitted from more help in finding and evaluating resources, organizing findings, and reporting on their research to the groups. The quality of student research was high. All students gave the course a positive evaluation, even students who were initially resistent to the instructors' approach to teaching. (SG)