Reading the Past, Writing the Future: A Century of American Literacy Education and the National Council of Teachers of English

Reading the Past, Writing the Future celebrates NCTE’s centennial by emphasizing the role the organization has played in brokering and advancing the many traditions and countertraditions engaging literacy educators since the organization was chartered in 1911.

Leila Christenbury’s introductory essay discusses trends in American literacy education. Then, prominent scholars focus on activities and subject matters central to teaching English language arts and college English: teaching reading, writing, language, and literature; using new media effectively; working for social justice in the classroom, school, and community; devising responsible means to assess the work of students and teachers; initiating the next generation into the profession; cultivating an ethos for action among those who support as well as critique this work; and looking toward the work that remains to be done in the century ahead. Finally, the afterword offers a telescopic view of the last 100 years and describes several critical problems currently facing literacy educators.

Appendixes provide details of NCTE’s history, including a timeline and listings of NCTE presidents, executive directors, section chairs, journal editors, commissions and assemblies, and convention sites and themes. This rich and thoughtful history of our discipline and organization is for every teacher of the English language arts and English studies who wonders where we’ve been, how we got where we are today, and where we all might be traveling as literacy educators in the 21st century.