The English Department and the composition class are mired in the trappings of Romanticism. Romanticism ingratiates itself, mostly in infatuation with the writing process, but with some other fetishes as well. The "whitecentric" character of that Romanticism imbues instruction; it is not just innocuous and "old hat," but really damaging. Students are asked to organize essays into orderly units that are as totalitarian as Romanticism can be. The thesis mandated is as overarching, as imposing, and as obscuring as that dark sycamore in "Tintern Abbey," from under which the poet speaks. Maybe teachers of composition need to be radically quiescent and not consciously hand down what they know, but encourage their students to render representations from under their own brands of lexical arbors. (CR)