High school teacher J. Arias employs a research method from anthropology to motivate students to research and write. Learning to use the methods and perspectives of ethnography, students become critical viewers and thinkers, able to connect the themes of literary works to their lives and to critique the variety of texts that surround them. Arias describes units on gender roles, a novel, and American rituals and traditions used with students studying British literature as well as those in a sheltered-content American literature course for English language learners. (Contains 1 figure.)