Awareness of a new and altered method of teaching literature, similar to that described by Adrienne Rich, grew from the experience of teaching a small introductory course in twentieth century Hispanic women writers to students with diverse language, cultural, and economic backgrounds. Although about half the students were native Spanish speakers, the material seemed foreign to them. As is often the case with women's studies classes, the works studied were also "antihierarchical", or outside the usual support system of back-up material. Therefore, student response and discussion were minimal until after the instructor had attempted to relate the material and weave a context for it as she saw fit. The particulars of each writer appeared unimportant until the students could detect individual voices among the writers. Returning to and rereading texts in order to compare the authors and their different uses of similar situations and themes gave the students the chance to discern a "female voice" in contemporary Hispanic literature. (SB)