Once upon a time, I was a huge literary snob. I sincerely believed in canons and canonicity.

I didn't recover until my PhD program, when I was forced to confront WHY I believed what I believed about Great Literature and Universal Themes for All Humanity.

Toni Morrison taught us in Playing in the Dark all about "reading as a writer."

Earning a dual PhD in English and education made me start reading *as a teacher educator.* Huge difference.

Teaching novice teachers how to teach ELA/reading/literacies *changed my mind.*

Page 42 of my dissertation - these are just some of the ideologies that underpin secondary English education in the United States. There are others.

Me: "Christie contends that... English is the most highly contested site in the school curriculum, bc it is intimately bound up with discussion of matters to do w/ the national psyche & identity, as well as with notions of the economic & social good of English-speaking countries”

Now, @nelsonlflores & @DrJonathanRosa's work on raciolingustics has made me rethink a lot of this - 10 yrs later, I won't uncritically quote C on "English-speaking countries" (What does that even mean? USA is NOT just "English speaking") but ELA is *contested.* Always has been.

ELA curriculum didn't just become contested yesterday, 20 years ago, or back in the 1960s.. ELA, as all of my colleagues know & teach in our methods courses, the very enterprise of PK-12 disciplinary English (and ELA, reading, literacies) has been contested *since its inception.*

The 1892 Committee of Ten is a HUGE part of why you learned what you learned in United States high schools. I have been trying to find a good link that isn't academic prose or something from a neoliberal ed reformer, but here's the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Ten

10 people in 1892 were the architects of US education. And we know who counted as "people" in 1892 USA. Please look at the list. Google to learn more.

US curriculum has been tweaked over the past 128 years but NOT radically reformed or transformed. And we get to talk about that.

MANY colleagues, practitioners & researchers, are doing the work to critique, decolonize & transform our dated US ELA/reading/literacies curriculum.

#DisruptTexts are leading practitioners (classroom teachers) doing amazing work. Love you all!