"The utter nightmare of us students"

<vg:p>Reading challenging literary texts often results in feelings of confusion, frustration, and alienation in students. The dynamics between students, instructors, and difficult literary texts are both challenging to understand and of great importance because of how such engagements can enhance cognitive and emotional growth. By analyzing a student-created podcast which aims to demystify complex works such as those by Shakespeare, this paper examines the strategies employed by the students–creators to overcome challenges presented by text. It uses a combination of video recordings, transcripts, and interviews to investigate what the students found meaningful as they reinterpreted their reading experiences for the creation of the podcast episode. By focusing on not just the product of the student podcast, but also the process in the form of the experiences, strategies, and appeals they relied on and deployed, this paper attempts to contribute to an understanding of these complex dynamics.</vg:p>