Trevor Aleo
@mraleosays.bsky.social
teacher | scholar | ENG & EDU lecturer | literary, critical, & postdigital #literacies
If you like the video, here are some sample resources if you want to learn more about unessays, including from my incredible new UMR colleague, @cjdenial.bsky.social: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Unessay Resources - August 2026 Teaching Minute
Unessay Resources - August 2026 Teaching Minute These resources and a sample unessay assignment have been shared by Jake Wright (Philosophy, UMN Rochester) to accompany the Teaching Minute video publi...
docs.google.com
While I still think long form writing has its place, this ⤵️ is a way better solution to “AI answer hacking” than blue book exams and high stakes tests. More of this, please! If you need examples/inspo/resources/research on incorporating new genres & mediums, I’ve got you! bit.ly/hackyourstack1
#HackYourStack Database | Notion
#HackYourStack is a crowdsourced collection of mentor texts, tools, resources, and academic research focused on digital media. Below you’ll find a database of genres, forms, and mediums you can access...
bit.ly
Jake Wright@bcnjake.bsky.social · yesterday"The most fun I've ever had in the classroom!" Earlier this summer, I talked to the University of Minnesota Center for Educational Innovation about how I use unessays in my classroom for their Teaching Minute video series. Here's the end result!
Books might be more/less capable of inviting particular lessons, meanings, or understandings but they are not deterministic of them. One can teach any book (even 1984 or Fahrenheit!) in ways that are dehumanizing or authoritarian. Stop assigning book lists and start supporting quality PD!!!
Trevor Aleo@mraleosays.bsky.social · 2d agoA) The state should not be in charge of dictating which texts are/are not worthy of study B) Discussing reading lists absent pedagogy is a form of textual fetishism that misunderstands teaching C) Cultural literacy cannot be disentangled from Hirsch’s belief in the primacy of authorial intent
A) The state should not be in charge of dictating which texts are/are not worthy of study B) Discussing reading lists absent pedagogy is a form of textual fetishism that misunderstands teaching C) Cultural literacy cannot be disentangled from Hirsch’s belief in the primacy of authorial intent
Annie Abrams@annieabrams.bsky.social · 2d agoI have a lot of thoughts www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/o...
Incredible thread on both the precarity and potential of scholarship undertaken by folks in para-academic spaces.
Matt Seybold@mattseybold.bsky.social · 3d agoSo, I really hope I get to tell this story in longer form in the near future, but it it’s burning a hole inside me. Most of it comes from an interview with Bob Hirst this weekend. Bob has been Exec Editor of the Mark Twain Project for 47 years, before which he was part of its staff for ~15. 1/16
Words to live by: "I want to be an honest man and a good writer." James A. Baldwin, born on this day in 1924
www.chalkbeat.org/2026/07/30/t...
A ‘lost generation’ of teachers left the classroom. Schools are still dealing with the consequences.
Veteran teachers left, principals cycled through too, and high-poverty schools likely faced the greatest strain. Here’s what years of churn did to classrooms.
chalkbeat.org
About to wrap up an absolutely incredible week with this NEH institute. It was the perfect bookend for a year where I’ve been researching, writing, podcasting, posting, etc. to try & spark more dialogue between English Ed, literary studies, literacy studies, & classroom Ts. goodreader.hcommons.org
Making the Good Reader and Citizen – THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE INSTRUCTION IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS
goodreader.hcommons.org
Excited to share my conversation with Dr. Joseph Allen Boone about his latest book from @columbiaup.bsky.social, "The Melville Effect: A Literary Afterlife Across the Arts"! It was a great conversation about the enduring, creative legacy of Melville's work. trevoraleo.substack.com/p/dr-joseph-...
Dr. Joseph Allen Boone Talks The Melville Effect, Aesthetic Hybridity, & Renewing Literary Traditions
Episode Description:
trevoraleo.substack.com
Me: Okay, Trevor. You’re banned from buying more books until you get through your backlog. Also me: But Fred…
I need Christopher Nolan to keep adapting towering works of literature as a sort of Keynesian stimulus for literary culture.
Aaron Bady@zunguzungu.bsky.social · 7d agoOkay now it's getting real
“Closing the Writing Center and removing its leadership now sends a disturbing signal about how seriously Harvard actually takes [its] mission.” Closing a writing center or library or dept or program or university press—an attack on one is an attack on all. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
In Defense of the Harvard College Writing Center | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson
As current and former Harvard College Writing Center tutors, we write to condemn the dissolution of the Writing Center as an independent entity and the laying off of its director, Jane Rosenzweig.
thecrimson.com
This feels particularly obscene considering that it’s happening mere months after their GPA hunger games announcement. I wish it only impacted people at Harvard, but it sets a precedent that other schools will likely follow. It seems not good that one of “top schools” sees learning as a bad ROI?
John Warner@biblioracle.bsky.social · last wk.This is one of the most absurd decisions by higher ed administrators that I can recall in recent (or even longer) memory. This is an absolute, irrefutable signal that the leaders of Harvard puts no value in the student experience of LEARNING. It's a joke and should be seen as hugely discrediting.
Meryl Streep's Enthusiastic Cheer
ALT: Meryl Streep's Enthusiastic Cheer
static.klipy.com
Jessica Smith@thedaybooks.bsky.social · last wk.It’s nice to see everyone’s textual analysis of The Odyssey It’s almost like the humanities give you entertainment, feelings, pleasure, and fun/interesting stuff to talk about, as well as lenses into both past and current society
The new class divide on humanistic education: it exists and will still exist in wealthy, mostly private institutions (or through private funding at a few publics), if via exploited contingent labor, but that 'taxpayer-funded' humanities at publics will be increasingly confined to 'civic' centers
What is frustrating about the new interest in the 'classics': Republicans are actively redirecting taxpayer funding to promote un-scholarly, right-wing versions of humanistic study in public university 'civic centers,' while Democrats remains uninterested in taxpayer funded humanistic education.
Live from Philly, where both LeBron & I took our talents this week (although I'm headed back to Boston later today), here’s my 286th #ScholarSunday thread of great writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, please share widely, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ +
#ScholarSunday Thread 286 (7/26/26) – Black and White and Read All Over
Live from Philly, where both LeBron & I took our talents this week, here’s my 286th #ScholarSunday thread of great writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add mor...
blackwhiteandread.com
"The frisson of disinhibition is tightly entangled with the thrill of domination, and it is this potent combination that I would describe as the carnal freedoms of contemporary counterrevolution." critinq.wordpress.com/2026/07/21/c...
Carnality and the Counterrevolution
Jason Frank Leading activists and intellectuals of the American far right have in recent years abandoned the language of conservatism for that of counterrevolution. There is agreement for many with…
critinq.wordpress.com
It's not like the old owner of CBS (Paramount), Shari Redstone, was a saint. But she had an incentive to maintain the audience, advertisers, and some semblance of journalistic reputation. As a _common owner_, Ellison has greater incentive to cozy up to the administration even if it kills CBS.
Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · 2w agoCecilia Vega describes what life at 60 Minutes was like under Bari Weiss, in the weeks before CBS fired her. Short version: One of the most disastrous debuts in modern journalism history. Via @oliverdarcy.bsky.social www.status.news/p/cecilia-ve...
The Hanford Class is full of non-readers who hijacked control over reading in schools. What has followed is a cheap, technical view of reading that has only served to create a K-3 school system for all, full of constant remediation and devoid of close, critical, and beautiful encounters with text.
Trevor Aleo@mraleosays.bsky.social · 2w agoThis got me wondering: Are there any disciplines who have a generally positive/healthy/productive relationships with journalists/commentariats reporting on their field? To be clear, there is some INCREDIBLE educational journalism, but its often drowned out by corporate tech garbage & moral panics.
The Odyssey was fantastic. There were a few omissions that left me scratching my head, but once it became clear that Nolan had "a take" they made a lot more sense. Also highly recommend Ryan Engley and Todd McGowan's podcast episode on the Wilson translation/film! open.spotify.com/episode/5d2s...
The Odyssey
Why Theory · Episode
open.spotify.com
This got me wondering: Are there any disciplines who have a generally positive/healthy/productive relationships with journalists/commentariats reporting on their field? To be clear, there is some INCREDIBLE educational journalism, but its often drowned out by corporate tech garbage & moral panics.
Trevor Aleo@mraleosays.bsky.social · 2w agoThis much needed, nuanced piece finally pushed me to sit down & get all my thoughts out about the "literacy crisis." It's my best attempt to combat the moral panic clickbait that circulates in The Discourse™️ and offer a fuller account of #literacies in the plural. substack.com/home/post/p-...
EduCongitivism is currently too reductionist to persist in its current form. It relies on behaviourism (Engelmann) and out-dated classical cognitivism (storage before inference). It can't continue to "win" arguments by referring to long-term memory as an ace card that trumps all.
Me pre-kids: Oh, wow. That guy is here is seeing a movie by himself? That’s a little sad. :/ Me after kids: Randomly decide to go to a 10pm showing of The Odyssey. Giggle with glee the whole ride over. Order the biggest popcorn size they have. Feel like I won life.
Here @mraleosays.bsky.social surveys the counters to The Atlantic’s viral “End of Reading” essay. He intuits from a skeet & an earlier essay where I’m headed with Deliberate Deliteracy: “The real threat is the war against the infrastructures & institutions that make all forms of literacy possible”
Three Theses On the Literacy Crisis
Why The Atlantic and the Moral Panic Machine Are Misdiagnosing the "End of Reading"
open.substack.com
This much needed, nuanced piece finally pushed me to sit down & get all my thoughts out about the "literacy crisis." It's my best attempt to combat the moral panic clickbait that circulates in The Discourse™️ and offer a fuller account of #literacies in the plural. substack.com/home/post/p-...
Three Theses On the Literacy Crisis
Why The Atlantic and the Moral Panic Machine Are Misdiagnosing the "End of Reading"
substack.com
Megan Greenwell@greenwell.bsky.social · 2w agoWIRED sent me to Mississippi to report a different kind of feature about reading. Why are third-graders there acing standardized tests but older students are still struggling with comprehension? What does measuring "literacy" even mean?
i don't think enough people know this is happening
Dr. Sarah J. Zuckerman@drszuckerman.bsky.social · 2w agoWhen one of my EdD students presented her proposal to implement thematic reading units with high interest novels one of her committee members said it wasn't Science of Reading 🤯 someone said out loud reading books isn't supported by reading research
Excited to share that I'm featured in NCTE's Council Chronicle. Check out Carly Berwick's fantastic article about how engaging with multimodal texts enhances students' literary understanding! #NCTE #Literacies Read the article here: publicationsncte.org/content/jour...
This is a question that #literacies folks have been asking and posing for a very long time! 👀
Megan Greenwell@greenwell.bsky.social · 2w agoWIRED sent me to Mississippi to report a different kind of feature about reading. Why are third-graders there acing standardized tests but older students are still struggling with comprehension? What does measuring "literacy" even mean?
