Through a detailed case study of one preservice teacher's development, the author examines the tension between basic skills and whole language discourses in literacy education. The author frames "the basic skills/whole language binary" as a "social imaginary,"--"an image that exists within the popular imagination or unconscious" and a force that frames one's societal understanding of literacy education. The author demonstrates how prospective teachers recruit their own experiences to position themselves within this binary and suggests important ways in which university coursework and practicum placements can provide a context in which preservice teachers might make sense of the "social imaginary" of literacy education. (Contains 2 notes.)