The context for this teacher narrative is a multicultural South Australian secondary school with over 50 nationalities represented, where many of the older students are disengaged from English. A transformative moment for the writer occurred following research for here doctoral thesis, which unexpectedly challenged her thinking about the English curriculum, the ever-changing world of the young people in her school and the need to make English more accessible and meaningful for here students. That transformative experience prompted a decision to make the writer's English classroom more interactive, and to link the curriculum more directly to the students' realities. This was done by letting go of the set text and developing a unit of work on "Othering", which involved a variety of media and drew on the experiences of all students. In this way the writer aimed to challenge her Year 11 students, as she herself had been, to undergo a process of transformation. (Contains 1 table, 5 figures, and 1 footnote.)