Reimagining English Language Arts

S. R. Toliver is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In her research, Toliver employs creativity and imagination as tools to confront systemic inequities and promote more equitable education environments.Heidi Lyn Hadley is an Associate professor of English Language Arts at Auburn, and a former high school English and ESOL teacher. Her research interests include teacher education and identity, the intersection of religious identity and pedagogical practice, and adolescent literacy.

• Introduction: Inherited Ground…Or, An Introduction 1. What Is ELA, Really? Beginning to Examine What We’ve Inherited 2. What Would ELA Feel Like If It Wasn’t Designed for English Majors? Examining Inherited Pedagogy and Cultivating Vitality 3. Whose Stories of Teaching Did You Inherit? Tracing the Narratives Behind Our Teaching Selves 4. How Does Being the Adult in the Classroom Shape Everything? Recognizing Adultism and the Brilliance We Miss 5. What Do You Actually Know About the Place You Teach? Examining the Maps We Carry into ELA Communities 6. Who Decides What Students Deserve to Read? Examining the Hidden Work of Text Selection in ELA 7. Is Assessment in ELA Ever Really Neutral? Uncovering the Hidden Work of Grades, Rubrics, and Standards 8. Is Lesson Planning a Template or a Negotiation? Holding Onto Our Thinking in a Field Full of Forms 9. How Do You Teach with Consciousness When the Stakes Feel Too High? Seeing Through the Fog of Surveillance and Standardization 10. What Could ELA Really Become? Consciousness Raising as a Lifelong Practice in ELA

“What a powerful book! This is a resource we've always needed and today's state of ELA evidences why. The critical work of addressing the "inherited assumptions" we've been asked to accept and teach from is what will truly lead us to a more liberated perspective as teachers. As the authors share, this field of ELA has always been about much more than standards or what is explicitly communicated. It isn't an unquestionable discipline, beyond our reproach or doubts. No, it's human made and therefore humanly flawed. This book shows us this history and more importantly, how we can do better.” - Lorena Germán, Educator and author of Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices“Reimagining English Language Arts insists that literacy instruction has always carried a history, and that every teacher deserves the tools to see that history clearly and accurately. Toliver and Hadley ask teachers, whether standing in front of their first classroom or their fifteenth year, to excavate the pedagogies, texts, and assessments they've inherited before they choose the next text, write the next rubric, or plan the next lesson. This is a book for anyone still becoming the teacher they were meant to be.”- Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad, PhD, John Corbally Endowed Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture, University of Illinois Chicago“As Toliver and Hadley explain in Reimagining English Language Arts, "the first task of conscious teaching is to excavate the roots already growing before deciding what else to plant." In excavating the historical "roots" of English Language Arts–grown from the ideological seeds that have caused the field, collectively, to stagnate over the past century and a half–Toliver and Hadley help their fellow educators understand why we must work to shed our role as "unconscious reproducers" of a system that, too often, stifles and undermines the dynamic, culturally-rich bounty that each student brings into our schools and classrooms. Writing in an accessible narrative format, the authors model how to humbly reflect on our past pedagogical practice and, at the same time, invite us to imagine the field that we ultimately wish to cultivate in preparation for the next harvest. Reimagining English Language Arts is that rare professional text that I will carry with me and return to again and again, no matter the season.”- Shawna Coppola, Literacy Specialist/Educational Consultant“ELA teachers don’t have to accept ways we’ve always taught, especially when we haven’t spent the time questioning any of the taken-for-granted understandings that ground our practices. Until now! Reimagining Language Arts: Historical Consciousness and the Future of ELA Teaching is the necessary, timely, and practical way forward. The authors have expertly framed important reflection questions that push literacy teachers, teacher educators, and school leaders into what lies beneath decisions, texts, and structures that, if left unexamined, can be harmful and destructive. However, Toliver and Hadley have created a text that is more than a handbook: it is an invitation to examine ourselves and our decisions, guidance about making collaborative changes that directly improve and expand literacy access, and ways to continue growing as literacy professionals. I’m grateful for this book and excited to see the way it can change our ELA work and improve the literacy experiences all students deserve.”- Kimberly N. Parker, author of Literacy Is Liberation, Working Toward Justice Through Culturally Relevant Teaching