Trevor Aleo
@mraleosays.bsky.social
teacher | scholar | ENG & EDU lecturer | literary, critical, & postdigital #literacies
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Trevor Aleo
@mraleosays.bsky.social
· Nov 15
Welcome to Becoming Literary!
Reimagining how we teach language, literature, and literacies one stack at a time
open.substack.com
Attention fellow English educators, scholars, and literary nerds! Interested in exploring ways we might reimagine how we teach language, literature, and #literacies? Check out my Substack newsletter and let’s learn together.
#edusky #academiasky
open.substack.com/pub/trevoral...
#edusky #academiasky
open.substack.com/pub/trevoral...
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
Huh. Turns out novels can help us think about money… and maybe even save the planet. Who knew?!
moneyontheleft.org/2024/02/26/h... @moneyontheleft.bsky.social
moneyontheleft.org/2024/02/26/h... @moneyontheleft.bsky.social
How can novels help us think about money … and maybe even save the planet? (Guest Lecture)
Can novels and, by extension, other works of art help us to think about money and trust in new ways? Could embracing alternative perspectives on trust and money help us to avoid climate catastrophe…
moneyontheleft.org
December 7, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Huh. Turns out novels can help us think about money… and maybe even save the planet. Who knew?!
moneyontheleft.org/2024/02/26/h... @moneyontheleft.bsky.social
moneyontheleft.org/2024/02/26/h... @moneyontheleft.bsky.social
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
Friendly reminder as we approach "final grading" season: grades are a fabricated assessment metric that never accurately reflect students' skill or progress, and only reproduce in students the god-awful idea that they should "game" the system and not actually learn.
TY for coming to my Ted Talk.
TY for coming to my Ted Talk.
December 6, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Friendly reminder as we approach "final grading" season: grades are a fabricated assessment metric that never accurately reflect students' skill or progress, and only reproduce in students the god-awful idea that they should "game" the system and not actually learn.
TY for coming to my Ted Talk.
TY for coming to my Ted Talk.
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
What a pleasure to have this out in the world! Read our editorial to learn about this open access issue featuring research re: the use of digital texts in classrooms!
Check out our guest editors’ @karismjones.bsky.social, @sarahejerasa.bsky.social, and @rabani.bsky.social editorial introduction to our new special issue series, outlining “The Complexities of Teaching with Digital Texts for ELA Teachers and Teacher Educators”!
Editorial: The Complexities of Teaching With Digital Texts for ELA Teachers and Teacher Educators – CITE Journal
citejournal.org
December 6, 2025 at 2:40 AM
What a pleasure to have this out in the world! Read our editorial to learn about this open access issue featuring research re: the use of digital texts in classrooms!
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
📚New Pub! Kicking off our guest edited special issue series on digital texts and how to teach them, @mraleosays.bsky.social writes on “Pixels, Prose, and Literary Knowledge Production: Cultivating Aesthetic Literacies Through Audiovisual Essay Composing”. Check it out!
Pixels, Prose, and Literary Knowledge Production: Cultivating Aesthetic Literacies Through Audiovisual Essay Composing – CITE Journal
citejournal.org
December 5, 2025 at 12:53 PM
📚New Pub! Kicking off our guest edited special issue series on digital texts and how to teach them, @mraleosays.bsky.social writes on “Pixels, Prose, and Literary Knowledge Production: Cultivating Aesthetic Literacies Through Audiovisual Essay Composing”. Check it out!
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
For MTC, John Downes-Angus reviews Tom Comitta's PEOPLE'S CHOICE LITERATURE and reflects on his experiences as a high school English teacher where on the daily he makes a case for reading the strange, the extreme, the unwanted—for the chance to accept "reading’s complicated gift to us."
Unwanted Reading: A Review of Tom Comitta’s ‘People’s Choice Literature’
The Sunday before I taught Beloved last spring, I sat on my couch wondering how I was going to convince a room full of second semester seniors that, before they left high school that June, they sho…
mid-theory.com
December 4, 2025 at 5:20 PM
For MTC, John Downes-Angus reviews Tom Comitta's PEOPLE'S CHOICE LITERATURE and reflects on his experiences as a high school English teacher where on the daily he makes a case for reading the strange, the extreme, the unwanted—for the chance to accept "reading’s complicated gift to us."
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
So exciting for this to roll out as our first articles from the special issue are released! Read the first two pieces here: citejournal.org/category/eng...
December 5, 2025 at 1:01 AM
So exciting for this to roll out as our first articles from the special issue are released! Read the first two pieces here: citejournal.org/category/eng...
Excited to have our work on digital texts & how to teach them recognized by NTLI! Whether you’re an English teacher, professor, teacher educator, or literacy scholar, our database is a great resource to explore new digital genres and forms.
reminiscent-attention-b9e.notion.site/HackYourStac...
reminiscent-attention-b9e.notion.site/HackYourStac...
December 4, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Excited to have our work on digital texts & how to teach them recognized by NTLI! Whether you’re an English teacher, professor, teacher educator, or literacy scholar, our database is a great resource to explore new digital genres and forms.
reminiscent-attention-b9e.notion.site/HackYourStac...
reminiscent-attention-b9e.notion.site/HackYourStac...
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
I love doing this.
Fav thing to do in the last class is to have the students pick their top 3 readings that I *must* include the next time I teach the class. Then they get into small groups and have to produce a new top 3 list. Solidifies all that they got from the readings (and gives me some ideas for the future).
December 3, 2025 at 11:20 PM
I love doing this.
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
In Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press), coeditors and English professors Sinykin and Winant seek to redefine the technique as a way to make and understand arguments, with uses beyond literary studies.
Breaking It Down: PW Talks with Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winant
In Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press), coeditors and English professors Sinykin and Winant seek to redefine the technique as a way to make and understand…
buff.ly
December 3, 2025 at 5:03 PM
In Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press), coeditors and English professors Sinykin and Winant seek to redefine the technique as a way to make and understand arguments, with uses beyond literary studies.
@cohslgates.bsky.social was my 12th grade AP Literature teacher and is one of the central reasons I became an English teacher myself. I was beyond thrilled when Marcus told me he had an incredible conversation with her on @thebrokencopier.bsky.social. Highly recommend this episode!
I loved this conversation with @cohslgates.bsky.social because it right away felt so authentic—and consequently because we got to some interesting places, such as this one:
How do we build and strengthen not only a capacity but a joy (!!!) for reading for TEACHERS?
How do we build and strengthen not only a capacity but a joy (!!!) for reading for TEACHERS?
December 1, 2025 at 12:17 PM
@cohslgates.bsky.social was my 12th grade AP Literature teacher and is one of the central reasons I became an English teacher myself. I was beyond thrilled when Marcus told me he had an incredible conversation with her on @thebrokencopier.bsky.social. Highly recommend this episode!
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
I too loved this… and I want to expand this idea:
In grad school, I co-led a course to explore what it would mean to think of “Teachers as Intellectuals”. We read everything from Freire to Gramsci to Said to Ransby.
I think about that a lot as I lead PLCs…and the gap between theory & practice is 😳
In grad school, I co-led a course to explore what it would mean to think of “Teachers as Intellectuals”. We read everything from Freire to Gramsci to Said to Ransby.
I think about that a lot as I lead PLCs…and the gap between theory & practice is 😳
I loved this conversation with @cohslgates.bsky.social because it right away felt so authentic—and consequently because we got to some interesting places, such as this one:
How do we build and strengthen not only a capacity but a joy (!!!) for reading for TEACHERS?
How do we build and strengthen not only a capacity but a joy (!!!) for reading for TEACHERS?
December 1, 2025 at 3:06 AM
I too loved this… and I want to expand this idea:
In grad school, I co-led a course to explore what it would mean to think of “Teachers as Intellectuals”. We read everything from Freire to Gramsci to Said to Ransby.
I think about that a lot as I lead PLCs…and the gap between theory & practice is 😳
In grad school, I co-led a course to explore what it would mean to think of “Teachers as Intellectuals”. We read everything from Freire to Gramsci to Said to Ransby.
I think about that a lot as I lead PLCs…and the gap between theory & practice is 😳
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
Instead of the stupid "We're not indoctrinating students, we can't even get them to do the reading *laughs on twitter*", we should have said "Yes, ideas are powerful and transformative, education is a form of soulcraft, and we're here to defend our vision of a just society."
May 18, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Instead of the stupid "We're not indoctrinating students, we can't even get them to do the reading *laughs on twitter*", we should have said "Yes, ideas are powerful and transformative, education is a form of soulcraft, and we're here to defend our vision of a just society."
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
starting Dec 1st! ie tomorrow!
for structure to eke out pages at a bonkers time of year (that is also a precious writing-est time):
you can do 250 words a day! books get written that way! if more, amazing! if not when grading or festive-ing, that's ok!
check in daily at #acadecawriteathon
for structure to eke out pages at a bonkers time of year (that is also a precious writing-est time):
you can do 250 words a day! books get written that way! if more, amazing! if not when grading or festive-ing, that's ok!
check in daily at #acadecawriteathon
is there a NaNoWriMo but for December and academic/ nonfiction? Should we start it?
December 1, 2025 at 12:28 AM
starting Dec 1st! ie tomorrow!
for structure to eke out pages at a bonkers time of year (that is also a precious writing-est time):
you can do 250 words a day! books get written that way! if more, amazing! if not when grading or festive-ing, that's ok!
check in daily at #acadecawriteathon
for structure to eke out pages at a bonkers time of year (that is also a precious writing-est time):
you can do 250 words a day! books get written that way! if more, amazing! if not when grading or festive-ing, that's ok!
check in daily at #acadecawriteathon
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
My bigger irk of late: that hyperbole is the path to attention is the path to narrative
If you write something along the lines of "Student engagement and resilience feels like it is slipping," you get a lot of nods and then we all keep scrolling
But if you post "STUDENTS NO LONGER DO ANYTHING"...
If you write something along the lines of "Student engagement and resilience feels like it is slipping," you get a lot of nods and then we all keep scrolling
But if you post "STUDENTS NO LONGER DO ANYTHING"...
This simply is not what I’m seeing in any of my high school classes. Not at all.
…not that it isn’t happening elsewhere, but it is striking how disparate these alarm calls feel from what I’m seeing day-to-day…
…not that it isn’t happening elsewhere, but it is striking how disparate these alarm calls feel from what I’m seeing day-to-day…
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
November 29, 2025 at 2:54 PM
My bigger irk of late: that hyperbole is the path to attention is the path to narrative
If you write something along the lines of "Student engagement and resilience feels like it is slipping," you get a lot of nods and then we all keep scrolling
But if you post "STUDENTS NO LONGER DO ANYTHING"...
If you write something along the lines of "Student engagement and resilience feels like it is slipping," you get a lot of nods and then we all keep scrolling
But if you post "STUDENTS NO LONGER DO ANYTHING"...
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The Claims of Close Reading - Boston Review
Literary studies have been starved by austerity, but their core methodology remains radical.
www.bostonreview.net
November 26, 2025 at 3:14 PM
I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
“Close reading is not magic. Its power lies in argument: always vulnerable, nothing simpler and yet nothing harder. And to clarify my stakes: the way that close reading is powerful is that it lays claim to power.”
#EduSky This is SO DANG GOOD!
#EduSky This is SO DANG GOOD!
I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The Claims of Close Reading - Boston Review
Literary studies have been starved by austerity, but their core methodology remains radical.
www.bostonreview.net
November 26, 2025 at 3:40 PM
“Close reading is not magic. Its power lies in argument: always vulnerable, nothing simpler and yet nothing harder. And to clarify my stakes: the way that close reading is powerful is that it lays claim to power.”
#EduSky This is SO DANG GOOD!
#EduSky This is SO DANG GOOD!
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
Thrilled to share this new pub! In this article, my brilliant coauthors and I explore a framework for narrative activity in a variety of texts. It’s open access- please read, share, and tell me what you think! doi.org/10.1002/rrq....
<em>Reading Research Quarterly</em> | ILA Literacy Journal | Wiley Online Library
The Reader–Player Interactivity Framework offers a cross-disciplinary model to understand narrative interactivity.
doi.org
November 26, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Thrilled to share this new pub! In this article, my brilliant coauthors and I explore a framework for narrative activity in a variety of texts. It’s open access- please read, share, and tell me what you think! doi.org/10.1002/rrq....
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
Yesterday my partner and I counted all the ads along Chicago's Brown Line for "Friend," a company selling an AI chatbot pendant, and tallied how many of those ads were defaced.
Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.
Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.
November 24, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Where are my theory heads at? For anyone looking to explore how secondary students can take up literary & critical theory to better read the word/world, come on over! The one & only @scottstorm.bsky.social & I will be running a seminar @ 4:15 in Rm 507. 👀
#NCTE25
#NCTE25
November 22, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Where are my theory heads at? For anyone looking to explore how secondary students can take up literary & critical theory to better read the word/world, come on over! The one & only @scottstorm.bsky.social & I will be running a seminar @ 4:15 in Rm 507. 👀
#NCTE25
#NCTE25
Excited to discuss the intersections between literacy, embodiment, interpretation, and literary inquiry. Come explore with @angelastockman.bsky.social, Jennifer Fletcher, & I at 1:15 in room 501!
#NCTE25
#NCTE25
November 22, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Excited to discuss the intersections between literacy, embodiment, interpretation, and literary inquiry. Come explore with @angelastockman.bsky.social, Jennifer Fletcher, & I at 1:15 in room 501!
#NCTE25
#NCTE25
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
Today's guests argue that the narratives & themes of English class are everywhere for those equipped to see them. 👇
@karismjones.bsky.social
@mraleosays.bsky.social
@virginiak.bsky.social
@nashb.bsky.social
www.humanrestorationproject.org/podcasts/are... #literacies #NCTE2025 #edchat
@karismjones.bsky.social
@mraleosays.bsky.social
@virginiak.bsky.social
@nashb.bsky.social
www.humanrestorationproject.org/podcasts/are... #literacies #NCTE2025 #edchat
November 22, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Today's guests argue that the narratives & themes of English class are everywhere for those equipped to see them. 👇
@karismjones.bsky.social
@mraleosays.bsky.social
@virginiak.bsky.social
@nashb.bsky.social
www.humanrestorationproject.org/podcasts/are... #literacies #NCTE2025 #edchat
@karismjones.bsky.social
@mraleosays.bsky.social
@virginiak.bsky.social
@nashb.bsky.social
www.humanrestorationproject.org/podcasts/are... #literacies #NCTE2025 #edchat
Reposted by Trevor Aleo
Tomorrow at #NCTE25 !!!! @mraleosays.bsky.social @thevogelman.bsky.social
@janerosenzweig.bsky.social
@janerosenzweig.bsky.social
November 20, 2025 at 10:57 PM
Teaching is a funny thing. Some days I’m like—I get paid for THIS?
Other days I’m like—I get PAID for this?
Today is the latter.
Other days I’m like—I get PAID for this?
Today is the latter.
November 20, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Teaching is a funny thing. Some days I’m like—I get paid for THIS?
Other days I’m like—I get PAID for this?
Today is the latter.
Other days I’m like—I get PAID for this?
Today is the latter.