This paper aims to consider the proliferation of journalistic articles that declare English Language Arts’ death –Heller’s, 2023 The New Yorker piece “The End of the English…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to consider the proliferation of journalistic articles that declare English Language Arts’ death –Heller’s, 2023 The New Yorker piece “The End of the English Major” as a most recent iteration. It puts recent mainstream publications in conversation, reading them as a genre of elegies that, while largely discussing English at the university level, contribute to a pessimistic milieu around the discipline of English Language Arts (ELA) and its teaching. This paper aims to trouble the common defenses against such “death sentences” to engage this cultural conversation from the field of English teaching to imagine a new conversation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper foregrounds articles from major mainstream news outlets, ranging from 2009 to 2023, as data to take seriously how popular opinions of English, as a subject and a discipline, shape the field of ELA and its teaching. Six articles resulted from the search and were subsequently coded for thematic categories as they emerged.
Findings
The essay describes and discusses three major resonances that arose among each of the four texts: financial concerns, STEM and statistics as growing disciplines, and the notion that studying English is superfluous and/or “White.” Considerations of common refutations to the aforementioned resonances and potential positioning for ways forward conclude the essay, working to imagine a new conversation.
Originality/value
This paper engages a conversation affecting many English literacy practitioners, through shifting attitudes and public discourse, that is currently under-discussed in the field more broadly.