A Conversation About the History and Future of English Education
- Tabar Smith
- Sep 9
- 13 min read
One of my goals for this blog is to offer perspectives, other than my own, to inspire open dialogue and reflection. Through this exercise, I believe we can build cooperation, collaboration, and community. To that end, I am using this post to have a conversation about the past, present, and future of English Language Arts (ELA). I offer discussions on the foundation of ELA as an academic discipline, including its prevalent philosophies and challenges.
The perspectives I present here are from academic journals and an interview with Bill Summers, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, English high school teacher, and current high school principal. Bill also happens to be my older brother. I frame excerpts from our conversation with reflections from my readings. You can access the full audio recording and transcript, along with links to the articles I reference, at the bottom of this post.
In writing this post, I saw that the topics paramount in ELA’s past continue to persist in today’s ELA landscape, and I suspect, will continue to persist well into the future. Thus, the challenges of each era are not new. It is the specific disruption of the era – civil rights issues, technologies, mandates – and how each generation chooses to respond to its specific disruption, that are the variables. I hope you find this post thought-provoking. If you’re inspired to add your voice to the conversation, my only request is that you do so to have a collaborative and productive conversation.
In his 2014 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Convention presidential address, Ernest Morrell speaks to the importance of recognizing the ELA educators and scholars who have preceded us. He honors them as “warrior poets who have fought for our children, who have fought for our discipline, who know that literacy is not only a civil right but also the key to our humanity” (309). Morrell’s statement resonates deeply with me because it suggests that the value of ELA goes beyond simply learning to read and write. Further in his address, Morrell claims:
English teaching needs to have as its focus the cultivating of youth voices… especially in this productive digital age. We know the students have something to say. They are motivated. What we do in this transaction in the classroom is help them know how to say it. Help them feel good about their ability to say it. Help them to say it with power and authority. Help them use their voices… to advocate for social change. 311-12
In another article published by NCTE, P. L. Thomas cites Lou LaBrant, a historical advocate for progressive approaches to literacy education, which demonstrates this same goal of ELA from an earlier era: “The reason for clarity, for approved usage, for attractive form, for organization, lies in the fact that these are means to the communication of something important” (Thomas 135). In essence, ELA “warrior poets” have defined our discipline as a civil right, essential to providing students with the skills necessary to be cooperative, effective, and empathetic global citizens.
As I posted on my Home page, I also believe in the value of ELA – that through the power of stories, we can build connections and community, and we can develop the agency to renew our world. So this topic is where I began my conversation with Bill. I asked him why he became an English teacher, after retiring from a 23-year career as a C-130 pilot and Vice Wing Commander in the U.S. Air Force. What was it about the academic discipline that he valued?
Bill: I think it's because I realized one of the keys to my success in the military was my ability to communicate, and especially write. I saw so many senior-level officers who had to write almost every day in a professional way, who just didn't have the skills. And when I recognized that I did have those skills, I got tagged with a lot of those responsibilities within the organizations I worked for. And so I realized how critical it was to be able to do that [write] in life and… how few people can.
Having made my own career out of being an effective communicator and writer, it’s easy for me to relate to what Bill was saying. But I wondered whether students see this same importance. I asked Bill for his take.
Bill: You know, when you're down in the more compulsory classes, you're gonna see your splits. You know, you're gonna have a lot of kids who don't care, and you're gonna have a lot of kids who do and really enjoy it. But I think in high school, when you start, you know, there's going to be a lot of upper-level electives that students who really only enjoy it want to be in, and then you do have classes that are just filled with kids who [sic]really love English or, you know, literature. And so I think that's what kind of makes it fun, is that there are two different kinds of challenges: one where you're trying to engage everybody when half the kids in the class don't want to be engaged, and then other kinds of classes where you're really trying to take kids to the next level who want to be there.
Going back to Morrell’s address, he talks about three questions that he uses to guide his work: “How do we get students excited about learning?”, “[H]ow do we develop students’ literate identities?”, and “[H]ow do we make reading instruction socially, culturally, and technologically relevant?” (310-11). To Morrell, students become engaged and successful in their education only when they are excited about it (310). Morrell’s second and third questions are branches of inquiry from his first. He argues that students must see reading and writing as activities fundamentally worthwhile, rather than as the tasks required to complete these activities: “When reading is something that is decoding, or done just for a test, then you have to drag students to it” (311). Therefore, students must see the relevance of their education.
Bill and I continued our conversation, exploring the topic of student engagement.
Me: What about student motivation? Do you think there are roadblocks there? Do you see a lack of it? How do you overcome that?
Bill: One way I talk to my teachers about it is… to talk about the three Rs in education – reading, writing, arithmetic – and assume that students were motivated, because after all, the only way to get your white picket fence house and 2.5 kids and a happy life was through education. And so students naturally were motivated to be good at it or to attempt it. Now, I think [about] the four Rs. And those are relevance, rigor, relationships, and reflection. And that's what's going to motivate a student to learn.
They [students] have to like the person who's leading them and learning, i.e. the teacher. They have to respect them. They have to feel like… they're in a safe environment. That teacher's creating that environment. They have to feel like they're respected as a student from that teacher. And if any of those things are off, then you've kind of destroyed the ability for that kid to learn in that classroom. They won't do it anymore...
It has to be challenging... If it's boring in our world today, it's not going to be paid attention to. So rigor's important. I can always remember my coach talking to me about this drill that he used to do with kids. He would sit them on the floor, cross-legged, and he would get a volleyball and he would put it between the pairs of them and say, “Okay, we're doing a competition. See who can do the most of rolling the ball back and forth to each other.” And they were only sitting three feet apart… Twenty minutes would pass, and the girls would look at him like this is stupid. It's obviously way too easy. And then he would say, “Okay, now everybody turn around. And this time, we're going to count how many times you can throw the ball to each other and catch it without looking at one another.” And of course… if someone did it three times, it was amazing… Then he’d ask, “So what [did] we learn?” And they were… looking at him like he was mad. They learned that easy is boring and nobody cares, and we don't want to do it. And hard is fun and challenging.
With academics, I think it's the same way. If you sit there as a student, any student, at any level, and you may feel good about easy for a little while because [of] you're grade… but in the end, easy is boring.
And then, of course, relevance is a huge key. If you don't see the point in learning something… then why do it?
And then here's the other big one… I always throw in reflection because we all know that real learning, the metacognition of learning, comes when you do something, learn it, and then reflect about your learning. Why did I learn it? How did I learn it that quickly? Am I going to remember this? How would I learn this better next time? All of those kinds of reflections are [sic} where all the key connections are made in your brain so that you truly learn something to an in-depth level. So reflection is important.
The Four R’s that Bill refers to are addressed throughout several of the articles I read, from respecting students for their intellect and innate abilities, challenging students to become critical thinkers, and covering topics that are culturally relevant to students.
The fourth R, reflection, is discussed in an article written by Robert E. Prost and published by NCTE. Prost discusses student reactions and resulting instructional opportunities in response to the tragedies of September 11, 2001. He uses this event to demonstrate how to teach students to read different forms of text based on the context in which they are consuming it (47). Prost highlights the need to read with empathy, placing ourselves within the story (48). He then advocates for critical analysis of the text through classroom conversations and reflective writing (48). Through this process, students can develop the reflection skills that will enable them to “think responsibly about what we see and hear and be better able to read not only the texts, but our very lives” (48). Reflection is essential to understanding and participating productively in our world.
Bill and I went on to discuss topics around standardized testing, conventional versus progressive ELA pedagogy, and the impact of the COVID pandemic on education. I’ve left these conversations out of this post so that I can focus on ELA’s current disruption, generative AI. But again, I encourage you to listen to the recording or read the transcript if you're interested in participating in our entire conversation.
Me: I would love to hear more about your thoughts on generative AI in education and especially in writing.
Bill: I think more than anything is that… once you get beyond high school and college, you're going to want to and be more effective if you use it… I can't think of anybody in education, from the superintendent of our district who writes a lot to teachers, to administrators. And then take that beyond the education[al] world, to the professional world, and… once you know how it works and how you can make it work for you, why would you not use it? And so for us… when AI very first came out in education… it was another tool which students used to cheat. And I had to fight that battle for three years in my school. Teachers were like, “Oh, my God, I caught a student cheating again using AI.” And so let's get beyond the cheating element of it, and let's actually use it as a tool. And they [students] should learn how to use it and make it work for them. And it's our responsibility as educators to make sure that they understand how it works. And yes, there are some doomsday scenarios and… agitations that I think people look at when they see it. In other words, they're focusing on the negative instead of the positive... But to be real honest, if I had a student who was able to pass, get a bachelor's degree by doing nothing but use the AI – there are some people who would say, "well that student doesn't deserve that bachelor's degree” – I say, that college doesn't deserve to teach that bachelor's degree if that is the case. That's my point… the student just [sic] figured out how to beat the system that the college… put in place. And good on the kid. And so that's… one way to look at it.
Me: For my master's thesis, I'm researching how to responsibly integrate AI into education and where to resist it… There are a lot of people trying to come up with frameworks to… teach students how to use it responsibly, to make sure that they're still doing the creative thinking, the critical thinking, and [the] analysis. Do you have any ideas [about how to] do that?
Bill: It goes back to my statement, making your communications class verbal versus written. I mean, I'm not saying that writing is not important, but AI can do writing. What I mean [is that] AI can also give you a lot of pointers on your verbal, but it can't talk. I mean, maybe one day we'll get there, but right now you… still have to do the thinking and talking. So I think that's one way of making sure that students are comprehending material… to have conversations in class. Still use educational questioning techniques… and critical thinking… and of course… You could have a kid sitting in the back, Googling stuff or using generative AI to help him answer questions for knowledge purposes. But actually putting that together in a formatted, concise argument in the middle of a conversation is not yet possible [for AI]... So I think there are [sic] some valuable tools there.
One of the things that I really think is interesting is we know that communication is… as high as 90% not what you say, but how you look when you're saying it. So, body language and facial expression. I actually… start off [teaching speech class] by walking into the class – and I had to actually practice this. I looked in the mirror a couple times while I was doing it. And I basically went in [to the classroom] and I would tell a story… about my weekend… about how my dog got hit by a car and died. And how sad it was. And how I'd taken him to the vet and that they weren't able to save him… Except I did it in this jubilant, excited, happy way with a big smile on my face. And my students were just – as you can imagine – they were freaked out by it. They're like, “What the frick is wrong with Mr. Summers?” And I did it to make the point: which way was more impactful… my facial expressions, body language, tone? Or was it the words I was saying?
So I think those are the kinds of things we have to think about as we're thinking about English instruction in the future, because, guess what? I mean… you can be the most brilliant person in the world, but if you can't talk, nobody will know.
Me: So then that leads me into my final question. What do you think the future of English education looks like and education in general?
Bill: English education has really always been about how well you can communicate, whether that's through writing, as well as your knowledge of the written word… about history. It's about concept in terms of phrases… Ninety-five percent of everything we've ever read either comes from the Bible or Shakespeare… Having that kind of knowledge of the origin of things is still, I think, valuable…
It's going to be about learning traits and skills over knowledge. To me, English has always been a great subject to teach because you can really teach anything and call it English.
In my high school, using English to teach career pathway progression, self-discovery in the freshman year, especially, so that students know who they are, what they're good at, and how those things match up to future careers that they may be interested in.
Again, I also think some of the most effective English teachers are the ones that have great relationship with students and bring experiences to them, whether it's through… getting them all to do a play, like “A Streetcar Named Desire,” and feeling the emotion… rather than just reading it or watching the movie, but actually doing it and experienc[ing] it and acting it out and having fun with it. I think that those are going to be the most effective teachers in our future… the relational ones. And I think most people who think back fondly about English classes think… about that teacher that they loved, that… brought that kind of emotion to learning.
In this last part of our conversation, Bill touches on so many important topics that were also universal themes in my reading. Such themes include making ELA relevant to the happenings and disruptions of the time (Brass 45), critically engaging with a text rather than passively consuming it (Prost 50), and focusing on all forms of communication (Morrell 319). Bill’s perspective about how generative AI will change what we consider literacy – verbal literacy being foremost – aligns with the last article I read before our conversation. In their article, “Artificial Intelligence in English Education: Challenges and Opportunities for Teachers and Teacher Educators,” Brady L. Nash et al. discuss how generative AI tools are disrupting our paradigm of literacy.
Perhaps the most ubiquitous concern for teachers surrounding generative AI tools has been their potential to disrupt traditional forms of writing instruction and assessment in classrooms. Many educators have proffered new visions for what alphabetic composition means in a world that includes not only ChatGPT but also a host of other generative tools for alphabetic and multimodal composition, including spoken audio, music, images, and video. These tools—especially as they become embedded in online word processors and social media apps—will change the way people read and write their worlds. (203)
However, change and being uncomfortable in that change are not new to ELA. These are perhaps the most persistent themes in the history of the discipline. ELA scholars and educators must constantly adapt their strategies to the world around them to best serve and prepare their students. Citing Children’s Defense Fund President, Marian Wright Edelman, Morrell reminds us that, “If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. Just do it one step at a time” (Morrell 322).
Cited Articles
Brass, Jory. “Rereading English’s Past and Present through ‘English Journal’, 1912 and 2012.” The English Journal, vol. 101, no. 3, 2012, pp. 45–49. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41415450.
Morrell, Ernest. "The 2014 Ncte Presidential Address: Powerful English at Ncte Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Toward the Next Movement." Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 49, no. 3, 2015, pp. 307-27.
Nash, Brady L. et al. "Artificial Intelligence in English Education: Challenges
and Opportunities for Teachers and Teacher Educators." English Education, vol. 55, no. 3, 2023, pp. 201-06.
Probst, Robert E. "Difficult Days and Difficult Texts." Voices from the Middle, vol. 25, no. 1, 2017, pp. 45-49.
Probst, Robert E. "Impossible Days and Simple Texts." Voices from the Middle, vol. 25, no. 1, 2017, pp. 49-51.
Thomas, P. L. “‘A Respect for the Past, a Knowledge of the Present, and a Concern for the Future’: The Role of History in English Education.” English Education, vol. 43, no. 2, 2011, pp. 123–44. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23017067.
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