Provocateur Piece : A History of Our Field

As a field of study, English has a far more recent history than most educators realize. While the subject is taught in each of the 35,000 secondary schools and 4,000 colleges in the United States, most English teachers know relatively little about the field’s origins or trajectory. “A History of Our Field” makes its way through major moves and figures that have helped to transform and define our subject, shedding light on our past. The five response poems that follow trouble, extend, and make personal this history. As a collection, the poems embody the field’s past, present, and future debates in a form that is both entertaining and educative, playful and serious.