PL Thomas EdD
@plthomasedd.bsky.social
P. L. Thomas, Professor, Furman University. Teacher/Writer/Poet. Social media is not my classroom. Posts represent me only and no organization linktr.ee/plthomas
Literacy (reading and composition) and education policy, comic book scholarship
Literacy (reading and composition) and education policy, comic book scholarship
Pinned
PL Thomas EdD
@plthomasedd.bsky.social
· Nov 28
We Teach English in Times of Perpetual Crisis: Selling a Story of Reading (and Literacy) [Webinar Companion Post] radicalscholarship.com/2024/11/23/w...
AI is the Trump of technology
November 11, 2025 at 4:43 PM
AI is the Trump of technology
The Zombie Politics of Merit Pay for Teachers radicalscholarship.com/2025/11/11/t...
The Zombie Politics of Merit Pay for Teachers
[Header Photo by Yohann LIBOT on Unsplash] The metaphors for education reform are far too easy, and thus, becoming themselves cliches—deja vous all over again, beating a dead horse, and for me, the…
radicalscholarship.com
November 11, 2025 at 3:42 PM
The Zombie Politics of Merit Pay for Teachers radicalscholarship.com/2025/11/11/t...
Eugene V. Debs: Statement September 18, 1918 radicalscholarship.com/2012/08/23/h...
Eugene V. Debs: Statement September 18, 1918
“Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while th…
radicalscholarship.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Eugene V. Debs: Statement September 18, 1918 radicalscholarship.com/2012/08/23/h...
The Socialist Objective: "I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity" radicalscholarship.com/2013/12/25/t...
The Socialist Objective: “I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity”
Under a pen-name for a newspaper in 1943, George Orwell wrote about Christmas, veering into a declaration of the Socialist objective, predating by many decades Kurt Vonnegut’s career of makin…
radicalscholarship.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:54 PM
The Socialist Objective: "I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity" radicalscholarship.com/2013/12/25/t...
Harrison Bergeron 2016 radicalscholarship.com/2016/11/02/h...
Harrison Bergeron 2016
Along with Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron” is one of his most taught, and thus most read, works. Both narratives also represent Vonnegut’…
radicalscholarship.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Harrison Bergeron 2016 radicalscholarship.com/2016/11/02/h...
"I'm Just an Old Fart, Leave Me Alone": On Kurt Vonnegut and George Carlin radicalscholarship.com/2019/03/19/i...
“I’m Just an Old Fart, Leave Me Alone”: On Kurt Vonnegut and George Carlin
Toward the end of his life, Kurt Vonnegut mostly abandoned his life as a novelist, publishing instead political rants against George W. Bush and Republicans for In These Times. Some of those essays…
radicalscholarship.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:49 PM
"I'm Just an Old Fart, Leave Me Alone": On Kurt Vonnegut and George Carlin radicalscholarship.com/2019/03/19/i...
Stranger Things: The Eternal Whiteness of the Pop Culture Mind radicalscholarship.com/2021/08/11/s...
Stranger Things: The Eternal Whiteness of the Pop Culture Mind
South Park has Token, and Stranger Things has Lucas Sinclair. Having come (very) late to Stranger Things, this was one of my first thoughts when Lucas sets off on his own to find the gate (S1E6). S…
radicalscholarship.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Stranger Things: The Eternal Whiteness of the Pop Culture Mind radicalscholarship.com/2021/08/11/s...
Banned in the U.S.A. Redux 2021: "[T]o behave as educated persons would" radicalscholarship.com/2021/11/11/b...
Banned in the U.S.A. Redux 2021: “[T]o behave as educated persons would”
We know of course there’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard. – Arundhati Roy The matrix of a poet’s work consi…
radicalscholarship.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Banned in the U.S.A. Redux 2021: "[T]o behave as educated persons would" radicalscholarship.com/2021/11/11/b...
Poem: reading a biography (in the absence of you) radicalscholarship.com/2022/11/11/r...
Poem: reading a biography (in the absence of you)
[NOTE: Reposting from 2015 to commemorate year 100 of Kurt Vonnegut’s birth 11 November 1922]
radicalscholarship.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Poem: reading a biography (in the absence of you) radicalscholarship.com/2022/11/11/r...
The Vonnegut Effect at 100: On the Promises of Humanism in 2022 radicalscholarship.com/2022/11/11/t...
The Vonnegut Effect at 100: On the Promises of Humanism in 2022
Kurt Vonnegut himself would likely burst into a raspy laugh, a smoker’s laugh, at the arbitrary importance associated with today being the 100th year from his date of birth, 11 November 1922.…
radicalscholarship.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:35 PM
The Vonnegut Effect at 100: On the Promises of Humanism in 2022 radicalscholarship.com/2022/11/11/t...
NEW: Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students (Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools) radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/12/n...
NEW: Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students (Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools)
Thomas, P.L. (2025, Spring). Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students. Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools, (1), 6-23. Abstract: The current reading crisis, t…
radicalscholarship.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:57 PM
NEW: Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students (Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools) radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/12/n...
The "Southern Surge" in Reading: Another Media Manufactured Mirage radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/28/t...
The “Southern Surge” in Reading: Another Media Manufactured Mirage
[Header Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash] Growing up in the South, I was often warned not to beat a dead horse. A lifelong love of science fiction and fantasy, however, has made me aware of…
radicalscholarship.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:56 PM
The "Southern Surge" in Reading: Another Media Manufactured Mirage radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/28/t...
Students, Poverty, and Reading: The Pernicious Folly of Red v. Blue Political Propaganda radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/29/s...
Students, Poverty, and Reading: The Pernicious Folly of Red v. Blue Political Propaganda
[Header Photo by Lisa Keffer on Unsplash] Public discourse on education in the US has a long and tedious history of shouting either “crisis” or “miracle” while often basing …
radicalscholarship.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Students, Poverty, and Reading: The Pernicious Folly of Red v. Blue Political Propaganda radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/29/s...
Research Highlights "Science of Reading" Fails Equity, Teacher Autonomy, and Social Media Discourse radicalscholarship.com/2025/11/01/r...
Research Highlights “Science of Reading” Fails Equity, Teacher Autonomy, and Social Media Discourse
[Header Photo by Jansen Yang on Unsplash] I am currently reading two engaging and often challenging novels—Roberto Bolano’s huge 2666 and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Bagdad. As an a…
radicalscholarship.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Research Highlights "Science of Reading" Fails Equity, Teacher Autonomy, and Social Media Discourse radicalscholarship.com/2025/11/01/r...
The Reading Crisis that Always Was and Never Is radicalscholarship.com/2025/11/01/t...
The Reading Crisis that Always Was and Never Is
[Header Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash] In 1961, scholar Jacques Barzun declared “we who run businesses, carry on professions, work for the government, or engage in teaching itself ar…
radicalscholarship.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:55 PM
The Reading Crisis that Always Was and Never Is radicalscholarship.com/2025/11/01/t...
NEW: Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students (Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools) radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/12/n...
NEW: Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students (Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools)
Thomas, P.L. (2025, Spring). Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students. Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools, (1), 6-23. Abstract: The current reading crisis, t…
radicalscholarship.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:10 PM
NEW: Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students (Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools) radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/12/n...
Teacher Education in (Another) Era of the “Bad Teacher” Myth radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/12/t...
Teacher Education in (Another) Era of the “Bad Teacher” Myth
[Header Photo by CDC on Unsplash] Note I entered the classroom as a high school English teacher somewhat ominously in 1984, an academic year when Orwell’s classic was increasingly assigned bu…
radicalscholarship.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Teacher Education in (Another) Era of the “Bad Teacher” Myth radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/12/t...
Fact Checking "The reading wars are ending. Phonics won." (Washington Post Editorial Board) radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/14/f...
Fact Checking “The reading wars are ending. Phonics won.” (Washington Post Editorial Board)
[Header Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash] The Editorial Board at The Washington Post published a bold claim: The reading wars are ending. Phonics won: The “reading wars” that raged in American …
radicalscholarship.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Fact Checking "The reading wars are ending. Phonics won." (Washington Post Editorial Board) radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/14/f...
The "Southern Surge" in Reading: Another Media Manufactured Mirage radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/28/t...
The “Southern Surge” in Reading: Another Media Manufactured Mirage
[Header Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash] Growing up in the South, I was often warned not to beat a dead horse. A lifelong love of science fiction and fantasy, however, has made me aware of…
radicalscholarship.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:09 PM
The "Southern Surge" in Reading: Another Media Manufactured Mirage radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/28/t...
Students, Poverty, and Reading: The Pernicious Folly of Red v. Blue Political Propaganda radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/29/s...
Students, Poverty, and Reading: The Pernicious Folly of Red v. Blue Political Propaganda
[Header Photo by Lisa Keffer on Unsplash] Public discourse on education in the US has a long and tedious history of shouting either “crisis” or “miracle” while often basing …
radicalscholarship.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Students, Poverty, and Reading: The Pernicious Folly of Red v. Blue Political Propaganda radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/29/s...
Research Highlights "Science of Reading" Fails Equity, Teacher Autonomy, and Social Media Discourse radicalscholarship.com/2025/11/01/r...
Research Highlights “Science of Reading” Fails Equity, Teacher Autonomy, and Social Media Discourse
[Header Photo by Jansen Yang on Unsplash] I am currently reading two engaging and often challenging novels—Roberto Bolano’s huge 2666 and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Bagdad. As an a…
radicalscholarship.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Research Highlights "Science of Reading" Fails Equity, Teacher Autonomy, and Social Media Discourse radicalscholarship.com/2025/11/01/r...
The Reading Crisis that Always Was and Never Is radicalscholarship.com/2025/11/01/t...
The Reading Crisis that Always Was and Never Is
[Header Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash] In 1961, scholar Jacques Barzun declared “we who run businesses, carry on professions, work for the government, or engage in teaching itself ar…
radicalscholarship.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:08 PM
The Reading Crisis that Always Was and Never Is radicalscholarship.com/2025/11/01/t...
English Journal Series: We Teach English in Times of Perpetual Crisis radicalscholarship.com/2024/04/22/e...
English Journal Series: We Teach English in Times of Perpetual Crisis
The following series addressing the “science of reading” movement is now complete at English Journal: We Teach English in Times of Perpetual Crisis. These are open access and listed bel…
radicalscholarship.com
November 8, 2025 at 12:13 PM
English Journal Series: We Teach English in Times of Perpetual Crisis radicalscholarship.com/2024/04/22/e...
NEW: Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students (Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools) radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/12/n...
NEW: Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students (Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools)
Thomas, P.L. (2025, Spring). Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students. Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools, (1), 6-23. Abstract: The current reading crisis, t…
radicalscholarship.com
November 8, 2025 at 12:13 PM
NEW: Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students (Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools) radicalscholarship.com/2025/10/12/n...