Turn the Page

Let's be old school.Imagine you are holding a book. Do you see it, feel it? If you are like me, you might even lift the book up to your nose and smell the open pages. When you open this book, I ask you to see not just the pages but also the color of the paper, the arrangement of lines on the page, and even the typeface.Open the book; turn the page.The PresentImagine the book is about us, our lives as English teachers. This book is about our challenges with our students, about our classrooms and our curriculum. So open the book to the center, to where we are today.What is on the pages of your book?In my book, I see teachers and students working and reading and writing and listening to each other. I see school at its best, a safe place to be with committed adults dealing with curious and boisterous young people. I also see conflict and argument, especially about what to teach, how to teach it, and whose voice counts. And when I turn my page, I also see issues swirling, including the following:Standards and testing (What is in your book about your state standards? About Common Core? How are they being used? Revised? Discussed?)High school restructure (So much of this seems a stalled issue-are your schools looking for a new schedule and timing configurations? New groupings of students and/or teachers, new pathways to graduation?)The place of life skills and training (In your book, are there new ideas about workable skills that may not lead to college entrance? Is there reconsideration of the undeniable need for those skills?)The achievement gap (Is your school district moving to be the one to transcend zip code as a foolproof academic success predictor? If not, what are you doing to address this issue?)And when I turn the page, I also see our own red meat as English teachers:Use and misuse of language (A colleague and I did a session at our state conference on the language of the election, the potent tweet, power words, terror words, the art of the personal attack. Sadly, it was not hard to find numerous workable examples from both candidates, and our public discourse may well have altered forever.)Media influence and power (How are we harnessing-can we?-social media and its tremendous and immediate reach? Its power to link us and, in the developing world, to provide communication among rural peoples and politically oppressed groups is amazing. Its use within our recent election has been without precedent. What about media's influence and even malevolent power?)Access to materials (What are you doing in your community about Wi-Fi, tablets, smartphones? Do all your students have access? If not, what is the plan to provide access?)Literature and reading (In one of my local school districts, round robin or popcorn reading and reading aloud are discouraged. In another local middle school, that old standby, sustained silent reading, has just been reintroduced. What are you doing? On another note, are we sure that an emphasis on reading- and reading as a science-does not displace literature?)Instructional time (Are we reading and writing in class? Or are we spending time with worksheets?)So, if this is where we are, let's turn the page again to the opening of the book. Where did we come from, and how did we get here?The PastDo you have any idea about how NCTE started or about something it did in the very recent past? What is in your book about the past?In my book I see a photograph of a gathering in Chicago's Great Northern Hotel. It is December 1911. There are assembled 65 determined individuals-men and women-from eleven states, and they are planning a small revolt. Their cause is opposition to a large and powerful cartel, led by the richest and most influential of the universities in this country (better known as Harvard). This cartel is determining the literature curriculum in the high schools in which this group of educators work and the nature of the testing on that literature. …