In this narrative inquiry, the author dramatises the tensions and discoveries that emerged in a literature course for pre-service and in-service teachers in an English education graduate programme. The students' resistance to the instructor's choice of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" as a central text led to reflection on responsible and responsive approaches for managing the inclusion or excision of canonical texts by white authors in the syllabi of literature courses designed for secondary English teachers as well as within the secondary English curriculum. The author also explores the tension between a belief in an open, democratic learning environment and the authority structures that reinforce the power of the teacher or teacher educator.