This complete second chapter details the experience the author takes his students through in a seminal exercise he regularly conducts for undergraduates in introductory literature courses (an exercise that has been replicated or adapted successfully in a great many middle school and high school classrooms by teachers across the country). Author Sheridan Blau gives instructions and offers explanations for his workshop, and addresses readers here as though they are participants. Blau begins by examining "An Experiment in Reading a Poem," which he breaks down into five, teachable, component parts: (1) Step 1--Three Readings with Notes and Questions; (2) Step 2--Group Work; (3) Step 3--Completing the Experiement and Noticing What Happened; (4) Collecting the Data from the Experiment, and (5) Drawing Conclusions from the Experiement--Essential Principles to Guide and Sustain the Teaching and Learning of Literature. Within the context of this five-part lesson, Blau discusses both rereading as a strategy and style of thinking and the importance of data collection in producing questions of reading, interpretation, and criticism. He concludes this chapter by reflecting on the data--literary reading and critical thinking. Blau's is a scholarly and researched approach grounded in practical application for the literature workshop. (author/bebrown)