“A teacher in search of his/her own freedom may be the only kind of teacher who can arouse young persons to go in search of their own.”
-Maxine Greene
Becoming Literary: An Origin Story
Education is a process of becoming. It's a site where we engage in the acts of interpretation, representation, and communication that shape how we understand ourselves and our world. This is not a process that ends once we're handed a diploma. Unlike schooling, education does not have a finite end point.
As it happens, I'm starting this Substack a mere week after defending my dissertation, and I am as hungry as ever to keep exploring. After over a decade teaching high school English, writing a best-selling book on curriculum design, delivering professional development around the world, and spending four years researching the intersections of critical, digital, and literary literacies, I think I have a lot to share. More importantly, I know I still have a lot to learn!
To that end, Becoming Literary will be a space where I hope to engage in public scholarship and shared sensemaking about teaching, literary studies, literacies scholarship, pop-culture, philosophy, aesthetics, and more alongside fellow educators, scholars, and literary nerds.
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Each week, I'll explore questions central to contemporary education and literary studies:
What are the latest trends in critical sociocultural research, literary studies, and the learning sciences (broadly conceived)?
What does it mean to live the good life of teaching?
How might aesthetic education help us and our students better navigate current moment of polycrisis?
What might these bodies of scholarship and theoretical questions actually look like in the classroom?
About Dr. Trevor Aleo
Trevor is currently an educational consultant and member of the English faculty at Greenwich Country Day School in Fairfield, Connecticut. He earned his doctorate in Education from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the Fall of 2024. His research primarily focuses on English education and the intersections between critical, digital, and disciplinary literacies. He is also an experienced professional learning facilitator who’s conducted workshops at public, private, and international schools in North America and around the world.
Trevor is a co-author of the best selling book Learning that Transfers: Designing Curriculum for a Changing World and has published articles in English Journal, The Journal of Transforming Professional Practice, and various special issues on topics related to secondary English teaching and research. As someone straddling the worlds of theory and practice, he is passionate about leveraging the latest educational research to design meaningful professional learning for fellow teachers.
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