Synopsis
While censorship has long been a reality for English teachers, the current censorship crisis represents a material change. This censorship is driven by politics, specifically Christian nationalism and related right-wing ideologies, and often is supported and upheld by local policies and statewide legislation. It is focused on large-scale book challenges, resulting in thousands of book bans a year. The current censorship trend also includes public condemnation of teachers and librarians through school board meetings and social media.
This volume, the first of two, shares original research on the upsurge of censorship that has overtaken the English language arts classroom, beginning in 2020. The articles in this volume feature research that examines censorship from a variety of angles, and provide insight into:
- A national survey of English teachers that found that while a minority of teachers experienced direct censorship, a vast majority of teachers are concerned about potential censorship and make book selections based on that well-founded fear.
- Research based on interviews with middle-school teachers about their book selections, which found that while most feel well-prepared to select high-quality children’s literature, they also feel constrained in their choices by both internal and external forces.
- Open-ended survey responses and storytelling to examine how teachers “worked around” restrictive curricular policies specific to the 1619 Project.
- The intersection of restrictive state legislation and policies, the reasons for book challenges, and the rhetoric around critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion using critical policy analysis.
- Actions, steps, and policy strategies that teachers and administrators can use to prepare for and respond to book challenges.
NCTE has long been an outspoken opponent of censorship. This support for books, reading, and teacher expertise continues through today via the Students’ Right to Read, the Committee Against Censorship, and the Intellectual Freedom Award. In a time of increasing censorship and attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion, this series and this volume serve as timely tools for helping to navigate this challenging landscape.
About the Authors
Katharine Covino, associate professor of English studies, teaches writing, literature, and teacher-preparation classes at Fitchburg State University. Her current scholarship explores critical pedagogy, applying indigenous lenses to cultural myths, and action research with English teachers. Covino has recently been published in Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education, English Journal, and has contributed chapters to a number of edited collections. She recently served as a coeditor on two different volumes focused on critical pedagogy: Challenging Bias and Promoting Transformative Education in Public Shooling Through Critical Literacy and The Intersections of Critical Pedagogy, Critical Literacy, and Social Justice: Empowerment, Equity, and Education for Liberation. The latter recently won a 2024 AESA Critics Choice Award. Prior to university teaching, she taught middle school and high school English in Austin, Texas.
Ann D. David is the chair of NCTE’s Committee Against Censorship and a professor at the University of the Incarnate Word. Her current scholarship explores the teaching of writing in complex and complicated secondary contexts. Her edited collection When Teaching Writing Gets Tough: Challenges and Possibilities in Secondary Writing Instruction was published by Teachers College Press. Additionally, her research explores the textual milieu of censorship, including its impacts on English teachers, by using arts-based methods. Serving as the librettist alongside composer Dr. Kevin Salfen, Five Choral Risks will premiere in 2025. Her advocacy for teachers’ right to teach and students’ right to read has led to opportunities to present on censorship and its impacts at the state and national level.
Christina L. Dobbs is an associate professor and program director of English Education for Equity and Justice at the Wheelock College of Education and Human Development at Boston University. Her research focuses on disciplinary literacy, language diversity, teacher beliefs and professional learning, and organizational change. Her forthcoming books are titled Until Every Woman Is Free: A Duoethnographic Exploration of Equity and Belonging in the Academy and Critical Disciplinary Literacy: An Equity-Driven and Culturally Responsive Approach to Disciplinary Teaching and Learning. She grew up in rural Texas and is a former English/ language arts teacher and reading specialist.
Christine Emeran is director of the Youth Free Expression Program at the National Coalition Against Censorship. She writes on contemporary issues about young people, social media, and social movements in the United States and Europe. Emeran is a Fulbright fellow and author of New Generation Political Activism in Ukraine 2000–2014, a book chapter on generational change and the personalization of protest included in a global social movement book series, When Students Protest: Secondary and High Schools, a book chapter on school censorship and student protest in a book manuscript, Sociological Research and Urban Children and Youth, and a book chapter on book censorship to be featured in Project Censored’s State of the Free Press. She has taught at Manhattan College and St. John’s University in New York and at Sciences Po in Paris, France, and received a PhD in sociology from the New School for Social Research.
Mark Letcher is an associate professor of English education and director of the English Language Arts Teaching program at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. His research and teaching specialize in preservice teacher education, writing teacher education, and adolescent literature and literacies. He also has served since 2021 as the Executive Director of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE (ALAN). His work has been published in journals such as English Journal, The ALAN Review, English Education, Research in the Teaching of English, College Composition and Communication, Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education, and Voices from the Middle. He has also published work on young adult literature in a number of edited collections.
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