There are so many good points in this article they're hard to enumerate. Personally, I see the shift to canned curriculum that is dominating my district right now as something dreamt up in a corporate skyscraper and sold to well-meaning educational leadership as a panacea to the challenges facing academics. Instead, it simply guarantees that no real thinking will occur in the classroom.
The teachers will put no thought into their lessons (because they play no role in it) and the students will put no thought into their learning (because they play no role in it). Instead, they're simply told what texts to read, what questions to ask, and what format their responses must take.
Corporations get their money, school leaders get their data, but the students get little more than performative demonstrations of compliance. They achieve no real learning—certainly nothing that will stick with them after the bell rings—because they've been denied the opportunity to explore, discover, and create. And then we scratch our heads and wonder why they're all so disengaged.
Thanks for reading, Andrea! If I remember correctly (sorry if I’m mistaken), didn't we meet at one of PWCS's summer curriculum/assessment development sessions? To this day, that was by far the best "district sponsored" professional development I've ever experienced. At the time, I don't think I realized how rare it was for a district to pay its actual teachers to come and build curriculum materials that their fellow teachers could adapt and use themselves—as an option, not a mandate.
I’ve been meaning on writing a post reflecting on that approach to share as an alternative model to curriculum development. It’s really disheartening to hear how far PWCS has drifted from that model, but it aligns with what my former colleagues have shared.
This is so important! Most teachers start teaching English because of a genuine love for literary analysis and texts, and when that's taken from us, we're not able to share that love with students.
Well said. This is why after so many years as a college professor I have attempted to "seize the means of curricular production," and have moved on to creating my own materials for teachers or students directly, helping them break from the system and, as you say, "reconnect with the living, breathing discipline." This is an important article here, and I hope it sparks good conversation among English teachers.
I identify with this as a U.S. history teacher. I benefit so much from engaging with the actual discipline of history: reading history trade books instead of history curriculum and listening to lectures from actual historians. Even though I've never taught APUSH, I have had students take the AP exam and do well on it. Why? Because I'm not teaching "a curriculum," I'm teaching a survey course in a discipline in which it is well understand by countless practioners to include various topics and themes.
Trevor, I really appreciate how you're exposing what must at some point have been deliberate severance from the discipline, the academy and the multiple communities of practice that do literary work in the world. It's why some of the most robust instruction happens on the fringes of high school schedules where the educators are still deeply connected to their disciplinary communities: in music, shop, and specialized electives. The same way principals often visit the PreK classrooms in their buildings for a breath of fresh air, I wander over to related arts for exactly this reason.
Thanks, Rachel! I didn't explicitly name it here, but the scholarship on disciplinary literacy is foundational to my research and practice, so I very much see myself in common cause with you and other folks in the field. I loved your book (cited it too!) and have been using it to shift how we discuss reading and writing at my school. I'm actually just down the road (well, the Merritt) in Fairfield, so I'd love to chat sometime about local efforts to bring this work to more people in CT and beyond.
There are so many good points in this article they're hard to enumerate. Personally, I see the shift to canned curriculum that is dominating my district right now as something dreamt up in a corporate skyscraper and sold to well-meaning educational leadership as a panacea to the challenges facing academics. Instead, it simply guarantees that no real thinking will occur in the classroom.
The teachers will put no thought into their lessons (because they play no role in it) and the students will put no thought into their learning (because they play no role in it). Instead, they're simply told what texts to read, what questions to ask, and what format their responses must take.
Corporations get their money, school leaders get their data, but the students get little more than performative demonstrations of compliance. They achieve no real learning—certainly nothing that will stick with them after the bell rings—because they've been denied the opportunity to explore, discover, and create. And then we scratch our heads and wonder why they're all so disengaged.
Thanks for reading, Andrea! If I remember correctly (sorry if I’m mistaken), didn't we meet at one of PWCS's summer curriculum/assessment development sessions? To this day, that was by far the best "district sponsored" professional development I've ever experienced. At the time, I don't think I realized how rare it was for a district to pay its actual teachers to come and build curriculum materials that their fellow teachers could adapt and use themselves—as an option, not a mandate.
I’ve been meaning on writing a post reflecting on that approach to share as an alternative model to curriculum development. It’s really disheartening to hear how far PWCS has drifted from that model, but it aligns with what my former colleagues have shared.
We sure did! I went out and bought the "Gamestorming" book after hearing you rave about it and wasn't disappointed. :-)
This is so important! Most teachers start teaching English because of a genuine love for literary analysis and texts, and when that's taken from us, we're not able to share that love with students.
Just been listening to American Vandal podcast on Close Reading. This is beautiful accompaniment
I still miss the old [ncte-talk] listserv. Thanks for capturing all the reasons why.
Well said. This is why after so many years as a college professor I have attempted to "seize the means of curricular production," and have moved on to creating my own materials for teachers or students directly, helping them break from the system and, as you say, "reconnect with the living, breathing discipline." This is an important article here, and I hope it sparks good conversation among English teachers.
I identify with this as a U.S. history teacher. I benefit so much from engaging with the actual discipline of history: reading history trade books instead of history curriculum and listening to lectures from actual historians. Even though I've never taught APUSH, I have had students take the AP exam and do well on it. Why? Because I'm not teaching "a curriculum," I'm teaching a survey course in a discipline in which it is well understand by countless practioners to include various topics and themes.
Trevor, I really appreciate how you're exposing what must at some point have been deliberate severance from the discipline, the academy and the multiple communities of practice that do literary work in the world. It's why some of the most robust instruction happens on the fringes of high school schedules where the educators are still deeply connected to their disciplinary communities: in music, shop, and specialized electives. The same way principals often visit the PreK classrooms in their buildings for a breath of fresh air, I wander over to related arts for exactly this reason.
Thanks, Rachel! I didn't explicitly name it here, but the scholarship on disciplinary literacy is foundational to my research and practice, so I very much see myself in common cause with you and other folks in the field. I loved your book (cited it too!) and have been using it to shift how we discuss reading and writing at my school. I'm actually just down the road (well, the Merritt) in Fairfield, so I'd love to chat sometime about local efforts to bring this work to more people in CT and beyond.
Awesome! Let’s loop in Lauren Francese from Westport have a CT, DL chat!!
Great post, Trevor. As you can imagine, lots of parallels to higher ed here, especially in terms of the centralization of academic decision-making.