Past Institutes

The High School Canon: Then and Now (Summer 2025 Webinar Series)

On July 7 and 8, 2025, Humanities Texas held a webinar series for English language arts (ELA) teachers exploring the history of the changes and continuity in the canon of most commonly assigned books since the 1960s and past and contemporary approaches to teaching classic texts.

Curriculum

Content aligned with the ELA TEKS. Like all Humanities Texas teacher programs, the program emphasized close interaction with scholars, the examination of texts, and the development of effective pedagogical strategies and engaging assignments and activities.

• July 7: “Then”: The high school canon is not just a product of cultural decisions but of a period when literature was the heart of the English language arts curriculum. In this webinar, participants examined primary and secondary documents from the mid-twentieth century to examine what English education—and the high school canon—looked like in this period. Participants collectively brainstormed which values and learning objectives from the past deserve recovery in classrooms.
• July 8: “Now”: Teachers are assigning many of the same books as a generation ago, but English language arts has changed. In this webinar, participants looked at contemporary strategies for teaching the longstanding #1 book in the high school canon, Romeo and Juliet, that are designed to engage today’s students. By comparing these strategies to how teachers have taught the play in the past, participants were able to reflect on how goals have changed and what might be recovered from the past.

Faculty

Jonna Perrillo (The University of Texas at El Paso), Andrew Newman (Stony Brook University), Rebecca Guerrero (El Paso Independent School District) led the webinar series.

Schedule

The series took place over Zoom on July 7 and 8. The schedule for the webinar series can be viewed here.

Sponsors

The webinar series was made possible with major funding from the State of Texas with ongoing support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.