Garth Boomer's democratic and often provocative vision for English teaching continues to play an important part in the professional development of English teachers. In particular, Boomer's work is often used by Teacher Educators in preservice degrees to introduce emerging English teachers to key ideas such as curriculum negotiation and student/teacher collaboration. Importantly, Boomer's work encourages professional dialogue, reflecting the concept that theory and scholarship about teaching, like school English curricula, should be negotiated and debated. This is evident in many of his publications, and particularly in his 1993 article "How to Make a Teacher". In this article the writers (a teacher educator and pre-service teachers) engage in a close reading of Boomer's paper, and continue this dialogue by exploring the continued affordances of these "essences" as a paradigm for English teaching in the 21st century.