Entering the Whirlwind: Editing English Journal, 1994–1998

Leila Christenbury
English Journal
Our History, Ourselves

"You have now entered Council history,” was the rather solemn benediction bestowed by the NCTE official who informed me, in a late spring 1993 phone call, that I had been selected to become the eighth editor of English Journal. The statement might seem a bit overdone, but, at the time, entering NCTE history was not far from how I felt. English Journal had been a pivotal part of my career in teaching, and it had figured heavily in my dissertation research. I had significant contact with the past four English Journal editors, and, over the years, nine of my pieces had appeared in the journal, I had edited a regular review column (1983–87), and I had chaired the 1991 English Journal Farmer Awards.

Fifteen years after my first article appeared in EJ, I became the editor of the journal that was, for many and certainly for me, the very definition of secondary English teaching.

While during my years as editor of English Journal I worked in two rooms at my university, supported by only two full-time editorial assistants and a part-time graduate student, beyond the EJ office I had talented outside reviewers and column editors, inventive cover designers, and an active advisory board. I was backed in my decisions by the immediate sponsoring body of English Journal, the
Steering Committee of the NCTE Secondary Section, and with the advice of other professional and personal friends, I was able to implement some innovations in the journal. Bolstered by the language of the governing NCTE document, “Rights and Responsibilities,” I knew I had obligations but also that I could exercise intellectual freedom: The document was the Magna Carta of NCTE editors and clearly stated that the editor had full autonomy in editorial decisions.

In the good times, reading and editing the 1,000 manuscripts submitted yearly, crafting the issues, working with the writers, coming up with the ideas, and fine-tuning the design made being the editor of English Journal deeply satisfying. With eight issues published every year to a readership of 65,000, I felt I was in a unique position to help influence and shape the professional conversation.

That belief, more than anything, made the demanding work wholly worthwhile. But being the editor of English Journal was not, by any means, all good times. It was, in a profound sense, intense, grueling, and, as an added surprise, character-building. While every editor knows well the often thankless aspects of putting together a publication—the common editor’s cynicism is that most readers believe that all successes are due to the writers and all failures to the editor —with English Journal, circa 1994–98, came challenges that transcended the usual strains of any editorship. I wanted the journal dead center in the midst of serious discussion and argument, and I got my wish. With my years as editor came a continual round of controversy, and maintaining balance and perspective became an ongoing task. Being the eighth editor of English Journal was, in retrospect, less like entering Council history than like entering the whirlwind.

The Readers React

My opening English Journal editorial called for readers to “respond, argue, question, proclaim” (September 1994: 16), and they did. Yet there was a surprise in store for me. It wasn’t that readers protested the changes I had made in the journal, or that they simply wanted to debate the issues: It was that there also appeared to be a deep intolerance regarding the mere appearance of a number of topics addressed. I had fully expected some English Journal readers to respond less than enthusiastically to aspects of my editorship and what I took to calling the “new” English Journal. Though mindful of English Journal’s history, even reverent regarding it, I changed a number of long-standing features, almost all of which were detailed in my application for the editorship and almost all of which I implemented when I was named editor. Thus the English Journal graphic design, which had been largely unchanged for fourteen years, and the logo, which had been in existence for even longer than that, were both updated. I added new columns; deleted or relocated others; stepped up the use of cartoons, puzzles, games, and photographs; and printed monthly letters to the editor.

While traditional topics remained for themed issues, English Journal also called for manuscripts on issues considered both conservative and liberal: breaking the rules, school violence, multiple intelligences, whole language, media literacy, the teaching of grammar and usage, the teaching of the classics, and the future of reform in the English classroom. An annual literary festival, refereed by outside judges, showcased teacher photography, essay, poetry, and short fiction. While I did not think these additions were terribly outré, not all readers thought that the
changes were needed or an improvement. The outline of the reaction was most publicly represented in the letters to the editor (most of which saw print), where it became obvious that the tenor of discourse had shifted from the relatively decorous letters published infrequently by previous English Journal editors to what I started receiving and putting in the journal every month.

Along with many missives of praise and agreement, letters that offered serious discussion of the issues, and letters that took issue with other letters, there were some on a far different plane. I received and, as a matter of conscience, published letters from readers that used relatively unflattering language. One reader registered her “dismay” regarding the “cheesey” new design (November
1994: 12). More seriously, one self-described “angered” reader called what appeared in English Journal “trash” and an example of “compromise[d] principles” (December 1994: 9). For one letter writer, early in my editorship, in English Journal “almost anything goes except a strong, consistent moral stand”; the journal was “allowing a forum for any and all positions on contemporary social and moral issues” (December 1994: 9). While I appreciated that latter comment, on a more grim note, I was urged to “be more responsible to those who read [my] magazine” (December 1994: 9) and chastised for a “lack of taste” and for publishing “inflammatory” material (February 1997: 9), material that was “junk” (March 1997: 9) and “deplorable” (March 1995: 12). After two years of my editorship, one reader concluded in a letter that “the ‘new’ EJ seems to have an affection for the outer edges of the profession” (April 1996: 11).

Perhaps it is a legacy of post-Watergate distrust, but, in general, the level of readers’ suspicion was high. When articles on certain subjects did not appear, many readers assumed it was because the articles had been deliberately suppressed, not just, as was almost always the case, not submitted in the first place. One reader protested that the lack of articles on nontraditional new teachers in a focus issue was a deliberate attempt to silence those teachers (September 1995: 11); the paucity of work on Canadian writers in a literature issue was a conscious decision by an American magazine to exclude articles about Canadian literature .

With my years as editor came a continual round of controversy, and maintaining balance and perspective became an ongoing task. (February 1998: 8); poems written by college teachers were crowding out those submitted by secondary teachers and usurping their rightful space (February 1995: 12). Even more frustrating, in all three cases invitations to the writers to submit their own manuscripts on the topics (or poems) were greeted with silence.

Efforts to be scrupulously balanced in editorial coverage failed to impress some readers: When four disparate articles appeared in the September 1995 issue under the heading “English, Religion, and the Religious Right,” one reader inveighed against English Journal’s “blatant bias against the Religious Right” (November 1995: 11). Though two of the four articles were written, respectively, by a self-identified member of the Religious Right and one by a self-identified religious believer (and others by a self-identified former fundamentalist and one by a historian), there was no pleasing this reader or others who called with complaints. For a few, English Journal was nothing more than a mouthpiece for the NCTE party line (Personal Letter, January 6, 1998); English Journal was little more than a “politically safe” journal that avoided hard topics (Personal Letter, September 3, 1996).

As alarming as some of the above was, it became clear that many of the letters and communications represented more than just traditional intellectual disagreement. What was disheartening to me as editor were the letters and phone calls not just arguing a point regarding the content of what had appeared in English Journal, but protesting that certain opinions had no place in its pages. As
my years as editor went on, I wondered if, for some subscribers, freedom of speech was a relative concept. For certain readers, it became evident that the journal could indeed publish material, as long as it substantially agreed with the readers’ beliefs or, at least, did not seriously challenge them. In many letters and phone calls, not all of which were—or could be—represented in the Letters
section, I was informed that English Journal had no “right” to print articles on certain topics or to “allow” writers to take certain stands. And it was not merely a dichotomy between liberal and conservative, right and left, for the range of topics and stands to which readers objected was hugely varied.  Protesting English Journal readers inveighed against not just the substance but the mere appearance
of articles on multicultural literature, of articles on the Bible as literature, of articles that cited the existence of gay and lesbian themes and writers. One reader, perhaps exasperated with the turn of events, even suggested establishing a fund to “ransom the old English Journal” (Phone Call and Personal Letter, February 7, 1995).

As my years as editor went on, I wondered if, for some subscribers, freedom of speech was a relative concept. At times the protests verged on the silly:  One reader was outraged that English Journal had printed, as part of the traditional section profiling the four judges for the spring Literary Festival, an excerpt from the writing of one judge. The reader, accordingly, sent in her resignation to NCTE headquarters because the excerpt, part of a published essay on the topic of the judge’s daughter’s high school graduation, “had nothing at all to do with the teaching or learning of language arts skills” and, further, “offends me intellectually and ethically” [to the point where I wish to] “disassociate myself from NCTE and all its publications” (Personal Letter, April 1, 1997). For printing a poem that satirized
school administrators, one reader promised in a phone call that English Journal would soon be the target of a statewide orchestrated letter writing campaign. The campaign never materialized—although, sadly, the author of the poem, a classroom teacher, was subsequently disciplined by his school district and in danger of losing his job. An article by a journalism teacher that, among other examples, cited the prose of Playboy magazine, should, according to one reader, never have appeared in English Journal because of that reference. Sending a copy of his complaint to the NCTE Executive Committee, the reader demanded a promise in writing that Playboy would never be mentioned in English Journal again, or he would resign from NCTE. (Of course I could not make that promise, and I assume the reader made good on his threat.) At one point a letter writer, a professional colleague who had always shown otherwise good sense, even objected to the publication of certain letters to the editor, noting that, by printing them, English Journal did little more than encourage “pettiness and parochial thinking.” “Judicious” selection of more appropriate letters showing more “sensitivity” was this writer’s solution (April 1995: 11).

As is obvious from some of the examples above, often disgruntled readers did not stop with their complaints to English Journal. The letter writers and phone callers promised protests to the members of NCTE’s institutional hierarchy: the Executive Committee, the Executive Director, and the president. Often (but not always) those threats were made good. Immediate suspension of membership in NCTE, as well as subscription to English Journal, was the usual form of protest. Always I wrote back to each complainant and expressed my regret that he or she would be leaving NCTE and not subscribing to English Journal.

And yet the situation was not completely dire. Many letters praised what EJ had done and was continuing to do, and in particular, during attacks on articles that included gay and lesbian writers, readers wrote eloquent defenses, not only of the authors’ ideas, but of the journal that had printed their work. As editor, I found the fall and spring NCTE conventions most helpful and during those conferences heard numerous positive words from attendees. I cite part of three letters sent to English Journal, which represent just a few of the many encouraging comments I frequently received:

“Thank you again for continuing the great American literary tradition of free thought” (February 1995: 10).

“Any magazine that chooses to further discussion and open minds and hearts . . . is doing its job to promote academic freedom and tolerance in our society at large and deserves to be commended,
not excoriated” (February 1995: 11).

“It is gratifying to know that I subscribe to a journal with backbone” (April 1995: 11).

On balance, then, I felt that the controversy was healthy and marked a journal that continued to raise important issues and, at its best, succeeded in disturbing the universe. A few times, however, I wondered if that weren’t an overly optimistic assessment of the situation. What, I questioned, had eroded our tolerance for opposing viewpoints, our appreciation for the role of an academic journal as
a place for open discussion and disagreement? Where did a stinging argument against a point of view become a stinging protest that that point of view should never see print? How did time-honored dissension turn into demands for suppression? 

Yet it was not only some subscribers who wished that certain articles never see print in English Journal. The other corner of my editorial whirlwind was occupied by a segment of the leadership of the National Council of Teachers of English, the publisher of English Journal, who, 1994–98, entered into battles of editorial control and attempted to explicitly shape the journal’s content.

Institutional NCTE and the Partnership Wars

My years as editor of English Journal were years when NCTE, as an institution, was attempting to help shape national educational policy. It was a tough assignment, the stakes were huge as far as influencing American education, and the attempt was fraught with controversy. Some of NCTE’s leadership saw the best path as entering into negotiation with other groups who appeared to be on the fast track to shaping policy. Yet negotiation was only the preliminary step: The question of the early and mid-1990s was not only the extent to which NCTE
could—or should—enter the discussion, but also the extent to which NCTE might lend its endorsement to specific reform and curriculum programs promoted by other entities.

One of the major issues was the creation of standards for the English language arts. NCTE partnered in the standards discussions with our sister organization, the International Reading Association, and both the negotiations and the funding sources (among them, the federal government) became complex in the early and mid-1990s. In addition, discussions had also been ongoing with the College Board’s Educational Testing Service (ETS), which was sponsoring Pacesetter English, a senior course that was an alternative to Advanced Placement English. Finally, NCTE had been in long negotiation with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), a group that was interested in setting criteria, testing it, and thus determining eligibility for Board certification of teachers. To what extent institutional NCTE would align itself, endorse, or further any of these movements was of great import in the early 1990s and the topic of fierce argument among some NCTE members. On one hand, there was the fear that
being involved would compromise the organization’s principles; on the other hand, not being involved obviously meant not having sufficient or even any input into what could come to affect English language arts teachers. Harvey A. Daniels, in an English Journal article (which I will explore further, below) summarized the dilemma succinctly: “Is it effective to join in projects whose sponsors, designs,
values, or goals are alien to us? Is it possible—or smart or right—to work both sides of the street?” (“Pacesetter English: Let Them Eat Standards,” November 1994: 44). For most members, the answer to that question was not clear or even immediate as, in almost all cases, the extent of control that NCTE would be allowed to exercise over the final document, product, or set of criteria was
often murky. There was much at stake, and there was little consensus on the wisdom of institutional NCTE becoming a partner with any outside program or organization. Yet, from my perspective, the partnership wars were a gold mine: What better topic for an academic journal to explore? 

1994–95: ETS and Pacesetter English

Pacesetter English, the brainchild of ETS, provided a set curriculum and a timed, fee-based final test for students who were not in AP English but who wanted a similar experience. I—and I suspect many others—had not heard of Pacesetter until the early 1990s, but at the 1993 NCTE Fall Convention a draft of the program was circulating and, in many discussion groups at the conference, arguments emerged. 

Two of the most vocal commentators on Pacesetter were Harvey A. Daniels, who found the program not only elitist but “top-down, businessdriven, government-officiated” (November 1994: 44), and Kristina Elias, who, to the contrary, saw Pacesetter as a course “designed for all students . . . [which] attempts to help this multi-cultural, multiability brood achieve national English standards” (“A Positive Look at Pacesetter English,” November 1994: 50). Accordingly, I asked both individuals to write for the November 1994 English Journal, whose focus, “Reforming and Re-forming the School,” was ideal for the topic. But what I saw as a fair and balanced pairing sent reverberations through some of the NCTE leadership. The phone calls to the English Journal editorial office began July 18, 1994, during the production of the November issue, and it was not until August 29 that the struggle was resolved. Dimly aware at the time of the importance of what was unfolding, I kept an ongoing log of the events and the discussions, from which I take almost all of the following specifics.

During the Pacesetter controversy in summer 1994, I received thirteen phone calls on the topic, all of which were from NCTE leaders and officials, both inside and outside the Illinois headquarters, and I had a number of face-to-face meetings with NCTE officials at the Standards Retreat in Indianapolis during the weekend of July 22–24. The focus of the calls and the meetings was only one of the Pacesetter articles, the Daniels manuscript, and the discussion became very serious when an ETS official and one from the Council of Learned Societies both promised lawsuits if the piece was printed in English Journal. While one high-ranking NCTE official was supportive of my stand and offered crucially important aid, other NCTE officials implied dire consequences. In a face-to-face conversation in Indianapolis, one NCTE official explicitly argued that, because NCTE members were involved with Pacesetter, the article should not be printed. There was also an effort to have the article circulated before its appearance in the November EJ. For my part, I did not perceive anything in the Daniels manuscript as worthy of a lawsuit, I did not accept the argument that NCTE’s partnership interest should affect the publication of an article in an NCTE academic journal, and I had, as editor, accepted the piece and planned to run it, with the Elias article, in November 1994. I also did not plan
to circulate the article to anyone or any group before its publication in the journal. I cited the Rights and Responsibilities document and, in two separate discussions (July 21, July 22) conveyed to the appropriate NCTE official that I would have to resign immediately if the Daniels manuscript did not, as planned, run in the November 1994 EJ. In the end, I did not have to resign: The Daniels article was not circulated beforehand, it was published in November, and neither ETS nor the Council of Learned Societies sued. Yet, possibly in anticipation of further such struggles, I was informed on August 2 that the term official would  be permanently and immediately removed from the English Journal masthead (“in light of recent events,” one NCTE official communicated in a phone call). It would not appear again during my editorship.

There was, though, another development, which proved that from a firestorm could come real good. It may have surprised some Pacesetter proponents, but I accepted immediately offers to write further articles on the subject, and, as a follow-up to the November 1994 Daniels/Elias pairing, “Pacesetter Revisited” appeared in the January 1995 English Journal. The section had an introductory
piece by me, giving readers some background, and pro-Pacesetter articles from Dennie Palmer Wolf, Michael Holzman, and Robert Scholes. A lone dissenting article came from Jim Vopat, who, betraying the anger generated on one side of the topic, made his piece on Pacesetter a nomination for the 1995 NCTE Doublespeak Award.

1994–97: NBPTS

The topics of controversy were not exhausted, however. Another tussle in the partnership wars involved articles on NBPTS, and though not as visible as with pieces on Pacesetter English, from my perspective the struggle was actually more intense. In the case of NBPTS, the unease regarding what English Journal was printing emanated from the highest echelons of NCTE headquarters. The
pressure was applied not only to me but to one of the writers, and, for the first time, the Steering Committee of the Secondary Section became actively involved defending not only EJ, but me as editor. Once again, I found little option but to promise my resignation if my decision to print an article was overridden. This time, though, I was in more serious doubt as to the outcome, and, because I had been editor for almost three years, the stakes seemed higher. It began with Anthony R. Petrosky, who had spoken at the 1994 NCTE Spring Conference regarding his ongoing work with NBPTS. Petrosky and his team had been creating and field testing an assessment instrument for teachers in pursuit of NBPTS Board certification, a crucial task that was being watched carefully by those interested in
NBPTS’s progress. Petrosky, who was highly thought of and whose work lent real credibility to the idea of Board certification (not to mention NCTE-endorsed Board certification), had been recently dismissed by NBPTS.

Once again, I found little option but to promise my resignation if my decision to print an article was overridden. In a November 1994 English Journal article, “Schizophrenia, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ Policies, and Me,” Petrosky outlined his involvement with the group. In a bitter essay, he criticized NBPTS and its policy making, policy making which, Petrosky contended, was specifically excluding classroom teachers. Because many believed that NBPTS was one of the few organizations of its kind to do just the opposite, put classroom teachers on its board and incorporate their suggestions, Petrosky’s contention to the contrary was a small bombshell. Yet, while a number of subsequent letters to the editor objected to the Petrosky article, in particular to his use of schizophrenia as an analogy to his work with NBPTS, it was not until Joan N. Steiner, then chair of the English Journal’s sponsoring group, the Secondary Section, wrote a piece that raised questions about NBPTS that the controversy erupted in earnest.

Concerned about the possible partnership of NCTE and NBPTS, and frustrated by what was perceived as NBPTS’s consistent vagueness regarding certain of its policies and practices, Steiner  wrote a column for the September 1995 English Journal. As with Pacesetter, during the production process (this time in the summer of 1995), calls were made to the English Journal editorial offices and to Steiner herself to forestall publication of the piece. It also became apparent that this article, raising questions, was considered ill-advised and ill-timed.  Citing once again the “Rights and Responsibilities” document, I broached the subject of resignation. This time the response from NCTE Headquarters was glacial—while during the Pacesetter controversy I had one crucial ally, there appeared to be none regarding NBPTS, and communication on the topic ceased. It seemed there was a standoff, and, in the September 1995 English Journal, Steiner’s “National Board for Professional Teaching Standards: Issues and Concerns” was published. In a way, I felt I had been playing a game in which I was only partly informed of the rules.
I thought the controversy was finished. Some NCTE leaders, however, were not so sanguine. One manifestation of that attitude was a Headquarters decision that on the English Journal copyright page would now appear a permanent addition, a content disclaimer statement, part of which reads:

Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified. (February 1996:4 and subsequent issues). 

About that time I was told through NCTE that protest calls were being made to members of NCTE Headquarters by leaders of NBPTS. Soon I was informed of a pending rebuttal from NBPTS, and I assured NCTE personnel that the NBPTS piece, whether article or letter to the editor, would be handled routinely. While I am not sure that at this point anyone at NCTE believed it, once again, I welcomed printing an opposing viewpoint, and in the March 1996 issue a three-column letter from NBPTS president James A. Kelly appeared. In that letter, Kelly cited the “disservice” the Steiner article had done to readers of EJ and called the journal a purveyor of “blatant . . . mis-statements” and “an amalgam of inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and fictions” (March 1996: 11–12). In an editorial comment  in that same issue, I reinforced English Journal’s mission to “continue to uphold discussion and debate within NCTE” (March 1996: 13) and stood by the accuracy of the Steiner column. Yet the criticism of Secondary Section chair Steiner was stinging, and the thirteen members of the organization she headed, the Steering Committee of the Secondary Section, wrote a letter to English Journal. The letter, published in April 1996, maintained that not only did Steiner “know what she [was] talking about,” but that her questions were appropriate:  Where else should the questions be raised for and with our colleagues than in our professional journal? And who else should they be raised by but our elected leader who has been representing the Secondary membership so vigorously and effectively? (April 1996: 10)

The NBPTS issue appeared to have a life of its own and wound into the annual winter gathering of NCTE leaders in Urbana, Illinois. At its February 3, 1997, meeting, the Steering Committee of the Secondary Section put the topic on its agenda, not only in regard to NBPTS, but in response to my decision not to seek a second term as English Journal editor. When members of the Secondary Section pointedly queried an NCTE official regarding the repeated pressure placed on me regarding published articles, the group was told that while the “Rights and Responsibilities” document was in force, it was considered wholly fair game to pressure any and all editors regarding the appearance of articles in journals (Tape Recording, Steering Committee of the Secondary Section meeting, February 3, 1997).

While the comment confirmed what I had come to suspect, to this day I am still surprised. In a way, I felt I had been playing a game in which I was only partly informed of the rules.

Conclusion

The years 1994–98 were, from my point of view, tumultuous ones for English Journal. Certainly I was not the first editor to encounter dissension: Steve Tchudi (editor 1973–80) had no qualms about pushing the envelope on many topics, and he used counterculture writers and arts with regularity and was regularly criticized for such. Ken Donelson, with the support of his coeditor Alleen Nilsen (1980–87),
offered his immediate resignation when the NCTE Executive Director ordered the removal of a homoerotic poem from English Journal; the poem was printed. Under editor Ben Nelms (1987–94), English Journal ran a number of unsettling and hard
hitting articles, particularly on the subject of gay and lesbian topics and on alienated students, and Nelms was in continual battle with NCTE regarding the art on the English Journal covers.  Current editor Virginia Monseau (1998–present), at least from the evidence of recent letters, has “disappointed” (May 1999: 12) and “saddened” (May 1999: 12) readers and has been asked if “it be possible for English Journal to stick more with English issues, rather than every issue being a study in ‘political correctness’?” (May 1991: 12).

My years as editor held their own challenges—and their deep satisfactions—and when, in mid-1998, the whirlwind touched down and my last issue was mailed, I left the journal with a sense of release and relief. Rereading what I wrote during that time, I find in the January 1995 EJ the heart of my beliefs about English Journal. I, of course, do not hold these alone: There are many members and officials of NCTE who share the same beliefs and who, during my years as editor, stood with me. So I say it for all of us.

I could say it a bit differently today, but I couldn’t say it better. Further, it represents that small part of Council history into which I do hope to be entered, possibly even remembered:

Disagreement, discussion, argument is the stuff of our profession, and the honest exchange of views is the essence of what we do, what we teach, in fact, of what we live. EJ has over the years remained a responsible forum for ideas. And, I might add, when it ceases to be such, it will no longer be the journal that has served our profession so well for these eight decades . . . Smoothing over our philosophical
chasms in the name of presenting a united front will not, I think, do any of us any good. In order to change we must continue to talk, to argue, to negotiate our differences and, indeed, our hostilities. Silencing the conversation is not only counterproductive it is, bluntly put, wrong . . . Ideas matter, and the expression of those ideas matters. One would hope . . . that our ideas are not so fragile nor our principles so shaky that they cannot withstand honest scrutiny and forthright discussion. Accordingly, all are invited, as always, to write English Journal and express popular, unpopular, wrong-headed, right-headed, dissenting, and assenting views. While threats, lawsuits, demands, and diatribes are not welcome, good articles always are. (January 1995: 59).

Note

There are a number of antagonists mentioned in this article, but identifying them by name serves no purpose. I battled with them all, and they know who they are. There are also, however, a number of people who at crucial moments helped me in ways large and small. To them, some of whom will be surprised to see their names on this list and may not even know what they did and when, I give thanks: Karen Smith, Katie Hope, Cliff Maduzia, Bill Subick, Kristina Elias, Driek Zirinsky, Patti Stock, John Mayher, Peter Smagorinsky, Harvey A. Daniels, Jim Sledd, Susan Ohanian, Diego Davalos, Ben Nelms, Alleen Nilsen, Ken Donelson, Steve Tchudi, Joan N. Steiner, Carol Avery, Alan M. McLeod, and, finally, Tucker Conley.

LEILA CHRISTENBURY is a former high school English teacher, a past editor of English Journal, and current vice president of NCTE.

Copyright © 2000 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.