Adopting a critical literacy perspective in teaching is about howexperiences, social contexts, languages, learning and powerrelations interact in language development. In this article, weexplore how students’ critical literacies are enhanced and hinderedby emotional power relations in the classroom. We investigatewhat happens when emotionally charged texts – here texts aboutwolves in Sweden – are used in lower secondary schools. Drawingon two examples we illustrate different ways of enhancingstudents’ critical approach to the argumentative text type. Thearticle highlights the affective aspects of teaching, and thusthe unforeseeable aspects of classroom interaction. Emotionally,the wolf issue became very different objects for the personsoccupying the classrooms. It invoked, e.g. homosocial relations,racist accounts and nationalistic outbursts. The article stresses thesignificance of teacher intervention but argues that to facilitatecritical literacy in emotionally charged classrooms, the circulationof emotions, including teachers’ emotions must be brought to light.