One composition teacher's experiences with the pluralistic student body of a two-year college led him to question the value of higher education, in particular writing and literature. Most current literature teachers were trained in the principles and methods of New Criticism, and most have found that these approaches are not adequate for their classrooms. Post-structuralist theory, however, which holds that there can be no pure signified, only the chain of signifiers, bears directly on what literature professors ought to be doing. Deconstruction (as put forward by Jacques Derrida) raises the issues of determinate versus indeterminate meaning and of authority in relation to meaning. Similarly, professors' approaches to the fictions of literature must not promise fixed verities; rather, they must engage with students in the processes of making truth by an individual's own actions and sayings--they must help students become empowered. The constructive side to deconstruction is represented by the philosopher Richard Rorty, who sees truth as created by the constant process of stretching beyond the limits of normal discourse. Language in this view is the instrument and mark of creative ordering, and people are agents struggling to maintain their freedom. In sum, recent movements in critical theory are rich with pedagogical implications. Common to them all is a questioning of traditional bases of authority. Theory can help bring into fuller and more careful articulation the realities of teaching in a two-year college. (ARH)