Based on classroom readings and discussions of William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," this Voices from the Field article examines the ways that teachers might use traditional canonized texts to encourage students to both critique and react against bullying behaviors. The author's experiences detail the narratives that students introduced while reading the play, enabling complex considerations of contemporary issues such as Islamophobia, homophobia, racism, and sexism, with the hope that other educators and teacher educators might use similarly sanctioned literacy selections both to counter school- and community-based resistances and to advance social justice in education.