This article aims to give insight into the professional identities of seven teachers who teach English literature to Grade 10-12 learners, in the North-West district of South Africa. The focus is on how these teachers' experiences are shaped by larger determinants (social, historical, professional, etc.), and how their experiences might resonate within the larger context of South African education at the current moment. A qualitative approach was used in this study and a multiple case study methodology was adopted. This method allowed me to explore the data in specific contexts, in a small geographical area with a limited number of participants. The aim of this article is to show how teachers' sense of their professional identities constitutes an important dimension of their work. This is in contradistinction to an over-emphasis on results that characterises so-called standards-based reforms and that threatens to reduce teachers to mere technicians.