More than sixty years ago, John Dewey and Louise Rosenblatt produced theoretical work that challenged prevailing assumptions concerning art and aesthetic experience. Today, their work continues to be relevant and particularly useful for exploring the troubled interface between literary scholarship and classroom practice. Rereading Dewey and Rosenblatt side-by-side has helped the author to envision an approach to literature instruction that situates the actual experiences of readers in light of an ontological perspective on the existence of literary works of art. The first section of this essay argues for a revisionist reading of Rosenblatt, in particular, that actively resists the influence of reader-response theory insofar as that body of work by and large recapitulates dubious assumptions about the experience of reading. The second section shifts the focus as the author discusses research findings generated by a project involving eighth grade students who met with him over a period of five weeks to share and discuss their thoughts on reading and rereading. The concluding section integrates these distinct perspectives to suggest ways teachers might begin negotiating the gap between literary scholarship and the needs of "common" readers well before it becomes an insurmountable obstacle for their students. (Contains 39 notes.)