A teacher educator explores the way students' metaphors for literacy reveal depth and complicated emotions. Metaphor has played a major role in Jen McConnel's scholarship and teaching, both as a reflexive activity and, as her research methodology. In her most recent work, she developed a metaphor elicitation process that is, primarily, a creative writing workshop, while secondarily serving as a method of data collection. This article, drawn from data collected during a multiphase study, aims to provide teachers with insights gleaned from students' metaphors. For English Language Arts (ELA) teachers, her specific goal is to offer these metaphors as windows into the complex emotional responses students have when it comes to the work of their classrooms, and to consider the ways in which eliciting metaphors from their students can inform their teaching.