In many of the Iranian universities, currently there seems to exist a huge lacuna in the way practitioners of the neighboring fields of English
literature and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (both enjoying the same departmental residency and both belonging in the applied linguistic studies worldwide) are involved in academic give and take of their theories and practices. In principle, there is little contributory tradeoff between them in terms of the analytic tools available to the practitioners of the two, with the academicians of both sides presumably living in separate ivory towers. English Literature as a discipline is considered a far cry from Teaching English as a Foreign Language in most higher education settings. To bring home the fact that this gap can, in part, be narrowed and to give a taste of how the two disciplines can join forces in teaching English language and literature, this article first goes over the pendulous history of the role of
literature in the second language (henceforth L2) classroom, and then argues that some tools at the hands of particularly literary critics can be applied in teaching L2 skills, in effect, reading skills. One such tool, cited in the relevant global
literature (Carlisle, 2000, Elliot, 1990, Hirvela, 1996, Probst, 1994), but apparently not still in the limelight in the Iranian language education context, relates to the use of Iser's
Reader Response Theory (henceforth RRT) in redefining the role of the reader and the mode through which they make sense of L2 reading texts available to them. This study sets out to elaborate on the theoretical and practical implications of employing the said literary tool (as one example out of a number of such tools) in L2 classrooms. The research is also a cry for educators to include more literature-based approaches and procedures into the current status of second/foreign language learning, especially in the Iranian context. As such, the investigation calls for more get-togethers of those involved in teaching English
literature and the pedagogues engaged in teaching English as an L2. It is hoped that such studies will provide L2 educators with awareness of the role of
literature in building up learners' critical thinking potentials, among other things, and will draw attention of both camps to rethinking the contributionary role of
literature to other Applied Linguistic subdisciplines