ABSTRACT
Look carefully at the grid in figure 3. Each box contains an area of concern for today’s English teachers in the United States. Of course, there are other topics, but the ones noted in the grid represent some of the major areas of focus in late twentieth-century English teaching. A look at the article titles in the National Council of Teachers of English September, 1998 publication, The Council Chronicle gives readers yet another view of today’s pressing issues. ‘Bilingual Ed Takes Hit in California,’ ‘Exploring the Teacher as Learner’, ‘Reading Excellence Act Dies in Senate’, ‘Inner City Curriculum “Parched” Kozol Says’, ‘NCTE Takes Bold Step with Reading Initiative’, ‘NCTE Web Site Continues To Grow’, and ‘Flexible, Responsive Classroom Practice: What Writing Teachers Need to Know about Their Fair Use Rights’. Professional conversations around these topics dominate today. They are representative of the sociological, economic, and political forces dominating the era.
