This article presents the author's response to Rafael Heller's critique of her commentary on foregrounding the disciplines in secondary school literacy teaching and learning. Heller challenges the idea of approaching secondary literacy instruction from a disciplinary perspective by arguing that rather than teach young people the literate practices and skills necessary for reading and writing proficiently in various subjects or disciplines, secondary school teachers should focus on developing "amateurs" who are well versed in the general liberal arts. This argument, however, is troubling on several levels. The author would like to address Heller's suggestion that even if the idea of disciplinary literacy teaching were useful, the work would be too difficult to accomplish. She doubts he really believes that one should give up on a goal of educational change simply because it is difficult; after all, it is difficult to change discriminatory practices or eliminate poverty, but they continue to try. What he appears to be saying is that he does not think the benefits of disciplinary literacy instruction outweigh the costs of making what she acknowledges to be rather sweeping changes.