Re-reading James Moffett's work in the light of more recent scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, this paper presents a "deconstructive" account of Moffett's key texts. Understanding them as instances in themselves of rhetoric and textuality, and reading them at once "with" and "against" the grain, the paper explores issues of dialogue, difference and discourse in this regard, seeking to tease out contradictions and ambivalences in Moffett's writing. What emerges is a meaning-potential for a complex view of subjectivity, and a renewed sense of the value of re-reading Moffett now, as a resource for thinking English teaching differently and anew.