This article draws on a recent research project in New Zealand on teaching literature in the multicultural classroom. Its focus is on how one teacher-researcher used the cultural and linguistic diversity of a junior, secondary English class as a resource in the development of her programme. It details a sequence of activities designed for a unit of work on the critical reading and composition of fairy tales, viewed as a popular genre across all cultures, and the impact of these activities on student participants. A range of pedagogical strategies are identified as successful: viewing cultural and linguistic diversity as a resource, empowering students to contest textual meaning, modeling, task-based inquiry and whole-class activity.