In this article, the author has attempted to guide her students in critiquing and reconceptualizing the deficit view of students, particularly minority students, endemic to the American school system. Using a self-study methodology, this article analyzes ways in which adopting a pedagogy based on Bakhtin's notions of dialogism and polyphony has shifted the author’s own and her students' participation patterns and describes some of the challenges the author faces in the continuous process of reflection on and redesign of her own teaching practice.