Literary criticism in the form of the so-called book report, may, therefore, wrote Stephen Bloore in 1934, "be a most valuable aid to independent thought if it is not used merely to check up on the books supposedly read by a student". For a century, "English Journal" has been a map and a narrative of the discourse about teaching ELA as well as the daily classroom practices informing that discourse. Two of the threads that have run throughout that history are how teachers view literary criticism and how they teach their students to respond to literature. The discussion about New Criticism that runs through "English Journal" provides an opportunity to examine New Criticism being implemented in the classrooms as an often unspoken norm of authoritative texts and interpretations, the implementation of New Criticism in high school classrooms as it contrasts with the vibrant argument within and about New Criticism and all literary criticism, and the call to examine the challenges offered by reader-response (Rosenblatt) and critical literacy as they inform the needs of 21st-century students. In this article, the author uses discussion of New Criticism in "EJ" to examine how literary criticism has been implemented in classrooms and how it might be developed in the 21st century.