The purpose of this study is to examine how Japanese language teachers read teaching materials in critical essay classes. I tried to have four teachers analyze two critical essays and describe each analysis for research papers. Two critical essays were "Venus of Miro" written by Takayuki Kiyooka and "Water in the Orient and the Occident" by Masakazu Yamazaki. This paper especially focuses on their descriptions about the latter text. Through the analysis of their descriptions, points in common among four teachers' readings are found. All teachers consider it important to pay attention to the author's cognition, thinking, and those processes rather than rhetoric. And more, the result of this research leads to the hypothesis that they desire that their students learn authors' way of thinking in critical essay classes. Consequently, they pay little attention to rhetoric.