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er rather than a more invasive, somewhat trickier conversational style that a smaller classroom would support. The students were able to disassociate themselves from the personal implications of self-disclosure for Dr. Wolf while, at the same time, witnessing a personal narrative in which they felt safe to engage, evaluate, and on which they could privately reflect. In a smaller classroom, the personal-academic boundary may be too blurred for comfort if the students feel too personally confronted by a teacher's personal disclosures. Finally, in the area of participation assignments, when the survey questions were consistently intended to point out a particular lack of awareness or information on the part of students, the larger classroom provided a sense of anonymity thereby fostering a sense of safety within an otherwise provoking environment. In a smaller classroom, this forceful a tactic could prompt students to feel they have an individual responsibility to come up with the “right” answer/opinion/feeling or face public exposure and embarrassment if they offer what might perceived as the “wrong” answer. The analysis offered here begins construction of only a first layer of understanding of one unique and powerful teacher's rhetorical strategies for critically engaging a large number of students without the benefit of critical, student-centered dialogue. Comparison studies are needed, of course, in other settings and with other teachers and students. Gradually, the findings could be pulled together and further conceptions and strategies could be added to the tentative categories discussed in this study. Moreover, for teachers who approach pedagogy critically, this study offers a starting place for theorizing how it is possible to retain critical aspects of teaching, even in the most challenging institutional settings. Raymie McKerrow's critical rhetoric suggests a framework from which to begin that theorizing work in order to more fully understand how students' critical consciousness can be developed in diverse classroom contexts that seemingly precludes critical approaches to teaching. And, as Henry Giroux (1992) suggests, This [work] is what the pedagogical struggle is all about—opening up the material and discursive basis of particular ways of producing meaning and presenting ourselves, our relations with others, and our relation to our environment so as to consider the possibilities not yet realized. (p. 202) My hope is that this study provides a contribution to that end. [A closing personal note: I came to this project as a work in progress. I am indebted to Michelle for walking with me during part of this process of personal and professional invention. And, I am grateful to her for earnestly and openly allowing me to witness her vulnerabilities and risk-taking and compare them to my own; to scrutinize her processes and evaluate them next to mine; and, to take those pieces of herself she generously offered and make them a part of who I am. Our visions, hopes, and aims may diverge in some respects, but we share a common respect for students and a reverence for processes of learning and teaching. My (re)creations and (re)inventions of my self, as a teacher and a student, are connected to hers, and, as she would point out, we are always already, mutually, works in progress.] References Andrews, J. R. (1989). “Wise skepticism”: On the education of a young critic. Communication Education, 38, 178-183. Arnett, R. C. (1993). Dial