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Tony Wei Ling

Peer Reviewed Articles

Contemporaries Essays, The Specter of High School English

Fostering Adaptive Readers

Percival Everett’s James is, among other things, a book about how to read well. Everett’s narrator James, his reimagined Jim, is a reader who relates in critical and playful ways…

Contemporaries Essays, The Specter of High School English

Teaching Writing for the Here-and-Now

In July, I’ll teach an introduction to humanities class for a group of soon-to-be high school seniors. A month later, I’ll teach a general education writing class to first-year college…

Contemporaries Essays, The Specter of High School English

Teaching in the Age of Attention: A Conversation with High School English Teachers

This piece is a collaborative effort between teachers of literature in high schools and college. It represents a conversation that bridges professional discussion about instruction across levels, and it provides…

Contemporaries Essays, The Specter of High School English

The Death of the Book: Mourning Literature Lost

Death Scene 1: Burned One of the earliest memories of Iowa involved watching a 27 minute long Facebook Live recording in 2018 in which Paul Dorr, Director of Rescue the…

Contemporaries Essays, The Specter of High School English

Post 451 : English Without Books

Sara, who until recently taught in a conservative school district in Kentucky, loves teaching Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451. She explained in a recent interview that the kids have seen…

Contemporaries Essays, The Specter of High School English

How High School Testing Changes College English Classrooms and What To Do About It

In 1874, Harvard University, frustrated with the inconsistency of incoming students’ composition skills and literary knowledge, established its first entrance exam for high school students to ensure their readiness for…

Contemporaries Essays, The Specter of High School English

Teaching Writing in the Digital Age

Teaching writing has long been considered a central aim of the high school English language arts classroom. Yet what counts as composing has shifted rapidly over the past three decades….