Conceptually Speaking

Trevor Aleo
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Conceptually Speaking is a show about exploring the cognitive processes and social practices that help us make sense of our world. As as teacher-scholar interested in the intersection of educational theory, practice, and scholarship, I host conversations with guests ranging from practicing educators to neuroscientists and literary scholars to YouTube video essayists. Each episode shares a common purpose: to consider, critique, and reconceptualize what we think and feel about education. If you enjoy the show and want to learn more, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, find me on Substack, and check out trevoraleo.com for more information, resources, and details on professional learning. 

  1. hace 2 días

    Drs. Karis Jones, Sarah Jerasa, & Rabani Garg Talk Teaching Digital Texts With #HackYourStack

    In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I sit down with Karis Jones, Sarah Jerasa, and Rabani Garg, friends of the show and the team behind the award-winning #HackYourStack initiative, to talk about what it actually means to teach digital and networked texts and cultivate literacies in the plural. #HackYourStack started as a play on NCTE’s Build Your Stack initiative and as a response to its Critical Media Literacy Task Force’s call for more practical digital and multimodal resources for teacher educators and practitioners. Over the course of several years’ worth of conference hangs and Zoom calls, we eventually developed a Notion database of educational resources organized by different modalities (video essays, fan fiction, hip-hop, TikTok, webtoons, gaming, podcasts, digital storytelling). Each Notion card contained curated scholarly research, mentor texts, and teacher-facing instructional materials all in the same place. It is truly a one stop shop for all things multimodal composing—analogue, digital, and otherwise. Over the course of our dialogue, we get into the differences between EdTech and (what I referred to in a previous article as) MADTech, what it looks like to treat young people as knowers rather than casualties of a never ending “literacy crisis,” and why a total retreat to RETVRN pedagogies misreads the post-literacy problem entirely. There are even some cringe confessionals about times where Karis and I tried and failed to be cool young millennial teachers before we learned about more responsive and participatory ways to invite youth culture into our classrooms. This is a conversation long in the making considering the work we’ve put into this database, various workshops, and even a Special Issue with the Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (CITE) journal. The culmination of which was our receiving the 2025 English Language Arts Teacher Educators’ National Technology Leadership Fellowship award. We hope you have as much fun listening as we did recording. Key Concepts from the Episode: Affordances and Limitations Every medium makes some kinds of meaning possible and closes others off. The pedagogical work is asking what a medium opens up and how communities build practices through and with its affordances.“Schoolifying” these practices by turning them into worksheets or templates tends to strip out the exact thing that made it worth borrowing in the first place: the audience, stakes, and network.Youth as Knowers & Doers Rabani’s framework treats young people’s out-of-school literacies as knowledge rather than deficit, which changes what the adult in the room is actually there to do.Applied to the “literacy crisis,” this reframes the panic as a measurement and framing problem without discounting its concerns entirely. Kids are reading and writing constantly; school just hasn’t counted the forms they’re doing it in.The Post-Digital Classroom Drawing on Jandrić and Rowsell, the digital becomes another embedded layer of meaning-making, sitting alongside the analog rather than above it.The payoff is a classroom that neither fetishizes nor demonizes the screen. The analogue becomes a deliberate choice rather than a nostalgic default. Screens are for creative communication, not content deliveryWhat AI Can’t Do The cheating panic pushes teachers toward blue books and handwriting. The episode argues for the opposite move: composing that demands presence and audience—podcasts, video essays, made within and for real communities.Persona, voice, and embodiment don’t replicate the way a five-paragraph essay does, which makes multimodal genres a harder thing to fake and a more honest picture of what a student can actually do.Regular readers of Becoming Literary will recognize quite a few throughlines: the convergence of new media and the humanities, postdigital aesthetics, English teaching, and cringey millennial humor.  Support the show

    58 min

  2. 6 may

    Dr. Al Filreis Talks Pedagogy, Poetry, and the Promise of Digital Community

    In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I sit down with Dr. Al Filreis, the Kelly Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, faculty director of the Kelly Writers House, and the creator of ModPo—a free massive open online course about experimental poetry that has drawn some 435,000 students from 179 countries. Our conversation, anchored in his recent book The Classroom and the Crowd: Poetry and the Promise of Digital Community, explores how ModPo became a genuinely thriving pedagogical community in a landscape of ghost-town MOOCs, and what that achievement reveals about the relationship between open texts, open platforms, and democratic forms of teaching and learning. Key Concepts from the Episode: Openness as Pedagogy The reciprocal relationship between open texts, open forums, and open-ended interpretationWhy poems that resist settled meaning are better vehicles for democratic learning than poems with knowable answersHow communal interpretation can be deepened rather than diluted by scale when the pedagogical architecture supports itThe Affordances of Poetry The idea that a poem is not fully a poem until it is received, read, and responded to in communityHow the individualist architecture of higher education — grades, degrees, career pipelines — works against the communitarian impulse that makes reading meaningfulWhy poetry’s perceived marginality makes it an ideal site for reimagining what education can beAgainst Technological Determinism Rejecting both EdTech’s promise that platforms will save education and the moral panic that says we need to unplug entirelyThe access question that gets erased by anti-digital backlash: for whom is unplugging even an option?What it means to insist on a utopian digital pedagogy without being naive about the platforms that host itThe conversation makes a compelling case that progressive digital pedagogy is not a contradiction in terms. At a moment when both the EdTech industry and its loudest critics seem to foreclose the possibility of deep, humanistic learning online, Al’s work with ModPo stands as a living counterexample. His conviction that poetry only matters when people read it together, and that digital platforms can be sites for that togetherness, left me feeling genuinely inspired about what teaching with and through technology can still look like. Check out more of Al’s work here: The Classroom and the Crowd ModPo PennSound Kelly Writers House Support the show

    1 h 3 min

  3. 9 abr

    Dr. Alexander Manshel Talks High School English & the Making of American Readers

    In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I sit down with Dr. Alexander Manshel, English professor at McGill University and author of Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon, to explore the under discussed history of the high school English classroom—a space that is simultaneously the most influential literary institution in America and the most overlooked by literary scholars. Drawing from his recently published article “High School English and the Making of American Readers” and his forthcoming book High School English: A History of American Reading, our conversation traces how the interpretive practices we take for granted in English classrooms (like reading for character, reading for theme) were shaped by specific historical forces, from Cold War anxieties to the rise of New Criticism. Xander and I wrestle with what it means that these inherited methods quietly structure not just how students read, but how they understand themselves in relation to each other, society, and the very idea of America. Key Concepts from the Episode: High School English as Literary Institution The high school English classroom as the place where more people read more literature more often than anywhere else—and yet largely ignored by literary scholarsA persistent gulf between secondary and post-secondary English educators, despite shared students, shared problems, and a shared intellectual traditionHow testing regimes and institutions like the College Board have come to mediate (rather than facilitate) cross-institutional dialogueGenres, Methods, and the Pedagogy of Individualism Reading for character and reading for theme as products of post-WWII Cold War imperatives and New Criticism, not timeless defaultsHow the high school canon, from Catcher in the Rye to 1984, consistently frames literature through the lens of “individual versus society”, functioning as a pedagogy of individualismThe Canon Revisited Despite decades of canon war debates reshaping university syllabi, the most-taught texts at the high school level have remained remarkably stableThe case for a living, evolving canon rather than an abolished one: these shared texts function as a national literary mythology with real cultural and political powerHow the canon wars at the university level has tended to elevate writers of color primarily for works set in the historical past, effectively disincentivizing studying the works of authors writing about the presentContinuing the trend of this series, our dialogue explores the structural issues plaguing English education (particularly testing regimes, standardization, and institutional isolation) that have narrowed what English can be, while insisting that the discipline’s shared texts, practices, and people offer a power we have yet to fully seize or realize. For teachers who want to know more about the history of their discipline and its methods, and for literary scholars who have yet to reckon with the place where most reading actually happens, this conversation offers both a historical accounting and a call to collective action. We hope you’ll join us in our quest to seize the means of curriculum! (T-shirt incoming). High School English and the Making of American Readers (article — open access) How The Great Gatsby Took Over High School (New Yorker article) Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon (book) Support the show

    1 h 1 min

  4. 13 mar

    Dr. Jeffrey Lawrence Talks Public Humanities & the Substack Literary Scene

    In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I sit down with Dr. Jeffrey Lawrence, professor of 20th and 21st century American and Latin American literature at Rutgers University and author of Anxieties of Experience: The Literatures of the Americas from Whitman to Bolaño and the Spanish-language novel El Americano. Like me, Jeffrey has found himself intrigued by recent developments on Substack, where a growing literary scene is raising questions, debating issues, and engaging in conversations that don’t fit neatly into traditional academic venues. Our dialogue moves between the institutional structures that shape literary studies, the surprising public appetite for serious engagement with the humanities online, and what it might mean for secondary English education to reconnect with its disciplinary roots. Key Concepts: Public Humanities The distinction between community-engaged public humanities and public-facing writing that still operates through prestige networksWhat it means to invite people into a discourse rather than simply making that discourse more visibleHow Substack has opened space for a literary culture where thousands voluntarily participate in serious criticism outside the credentialing structures of the universityDisciplinary Fragmentation The silos within English departments (literary studies, composition and rhetoric, creative writing, etc.) and how those divisions shape what reaches K-12 classroomsHow methods from rhet-comp and cultural studies seeped into secondary English education while literary studies seemed to turned inwardThe historical decline of cross-pollination between MLA and NCTE, and what that separation has cost both fieldsThe Canon Question The difference between treating the canon as a fixed inheritance and treating it as a living tradition that can be renegotiated in each momentWhy refusing to engage with questions of canonization has its own costs — including leaving students without the tools to participate in, critique, and renew long-standing intellectual communitiesFraming canon formation not as culture wars but as an ongoing disciplinary practice students can and should be invited intoDefending the Humanities How the defense of the humanities can be seen as being too intramural and why that hasn’t workedWhat genuine heterogeneity might look like in literary studies, and why public platforms may offer something the academy currently does notThe gatekeeping mechanisms that constrain academic publishing and hiring, and how they limit the range of voices and methodological commitments in the fieldIn what’s quickly becoming a theme in these conversations, we also discuss how the people best positioned to connect literary culture to a broader public (high school English teachers!) have often been alienated from it through regimes of high stakes testing and curricular standardization. For educators who share that sense that something essential has been lost in the way English is taught and structured since the neoliberal turn within K-16 education, this conversation offers both a diagnosis and a provocation.  Jeffrey’s Substack Anxieties of Experience El Americano Support the show

    1 h 4 min

  5. 4 feb

    Drs. Dan Sinykin & Johanna Winant Talk Close Reading for the 21st Century

    In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Dan Sinykin and Dr. Johanna Winant, editors of the new publication Close Reading for the 21st Century. While close reading is a foundational practice in literary studies, it’s also one that remains notoriously difficult to define. Dan and Johanna explain how they set out to do the “impossible” task of defining the term, ultimately framing it as the practice of paying attention to a passage of text to account for its meaning and argue how it works. Key Concepts from the Episode: The Five-Step Method: Dan and Johanna emphasize the distinction between close reading as a verb (the messy, non-linear process of thinking) and close reading as a noun (the polished genre of writing). To help students master the “noun,” they anatomize the practice into five movements: Scene Setting: A strategic summary that invites the reader in, choosing only the parts of the text necessary to follow the argument.Noticing: Stopping on a concrete, “finger-sized” detail that feels strange, unusual, or evocative.Local Claiming: Sitting with that detail to make a specific interpretation of how it works within its immediate surroundings.Regional Argumentation: Identifying patterns across the entire poem, story, or play to build a cohesive argument.Global Theorizing: The final, “wild” moment where the critic connects their argument to broader historical periods, genres, or universal themes.The Pedagogical Disjuncture: One of the most striking parts of our conversation is the unfortunate gap between how close reading is practiced by professional critics and how it is taught in schools dominated by standardized tests and AP curriculum. While the discipline shifted toward historicism and theory in the 1980s, classroom pedagogy often remains stuck in a zombified version of New Criticism that is shaped by regimes of standardized testing and standardized curriculum.  Close Reading as a Democratic Practice: Rather than a solitary exercise in theme parroting or symbol hunting, close reading is reimagined as a dialogue between authors, theorists, and critics that unfolds across time and space. When presented this way, close reading functions as a set of tools that students can use to both appreciate and argue about aesthetic objects in ways that make them more attuned to the world around them and connected to those who share their passion for close reading. Practical Implications This conversation offers a vital bridge for educators looking to move beyond rote analysis. The five-step method allows students to move from simple observation to global theorizing without making specious leaps. Ultimately, Dan and Johanna remind us that when we ask students to close read, we are asking them to perform a feat of intellectual elegance. By reintroducing the beauty of the genre and treating students as active participants in a scholarly conversation, we can transform the English classroom into a place where students don’t just “do school,” but participate in intellectual and scholarly communities that not only read the word and the world, but intervene in it as well. Check out Dan and Johanna’s work: Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century Dan Sinykin's Website Johanna Winant's website The Claims of Close Reading (Boston Review) Support the show

    1 h 3 min

  6. 25/11/2025

    Dr. Susan Blum Talks Schoolishness, Alienated Education, & the Quest for Authentic, Joyful Learning

    In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I sit down with Dr. Susan D. Blum, a cultural, linguistic, and psychological anthropologist and author of Schoolishness: Alienated Education and Authentic, Joyful Learning. Our conversation centers on a powerful concept that captures much of what constrains contemporary education: schoolishness. Drawing on thinkers from Marx to the Buddha, from school-aged children to sociolinguists, Susan's work reveals how the seemingly natural structures of institutional education are not only artificial but actively work against the joy and meaning that make learning worthwhile. Key Concepts from the Episode: Schoolishness and Alienation Understanding schoolishness as packaged learning, uniformity, arbitrary forms, predetermined time, and delayed rewardsRecognizing how alienated labor in school means students trade meaningless tasks for credentials rather than engaging in authentic learningExamining ten dimensions of schooling that contribute to alienation (including space, time, assessment, etc.)Contrasting alienated education with authentic, joyful learning that happens naturally everywhereThe Naturalization of School Structures How institutional forms become "naturalized" and seem inevitable despite being historical constructsThe survivorship bias of educators who succeeded at the "school game" and now perpetuate its structuresUnderstanding that grades, classrooms, and standardized curricula are not universal or timeless features of learningRecognizing that learning to walk, talk, and engage with the world happens without curriculum, grades, or coercionUngrading Practices & Communities The role of social media and digital networks in building communities of practice around alternative approachesHow the ungrading movement demonstrates organic, educator-led change despite institutional inertiaThe importance of generous knowledge-sharing and making work public so others can adapt itFinding colleagues and collaborators across institutions when local support isn't availableSusan's work offers both devastating critique and hopeful possibility. While she acknowledges the massive structural constraints facing educators—particularly contingent faculty with limited time and security—she also demonstrates how networked communities and committed collaboration can support meaningful change. Her approach to working with colleagues emphasizes meeting people where they are, rather than imposing solutions, and offering alternatives when existing practices aren't working, rather than demanding revolution. For educators feeling trapped by institutional constraints yet hungry for something more authentic, this episode validates both the struggle and the possibility of change. It offers permission to question what seems inevitable while providing concrete examples of how others have created learning experiences that honor both student agency and genuine intellectual engagement. Check out Susan's work: Schoolishness: Alienated Education and the Quest to Learn with Authentic PrideUngrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) (editor)Dr. Susan D. Blum's Website & SubstackSupport the show

    1 h 5 min

  7. 21/08/2025

    Dr. Rachel Horst Talks Entanglement and Literacy in the Age of AI

    In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I explore the complex and contested terrain of AI literacy with Dr. Rachel Horst, a digital literacy and arts-based scholar whose framework for understanding entangled literacies offers a refreshing alternative to the polarized discourse surrounding artificial intelligence in education. Drawing from posthumanist theory and futures literacies scholarship, our conversation challenges both techno-optimistic and techno-pessimistic narratives while centering creativity, relationality, and critical inquiry in our approach to these emerging technologies. Key Concepts from the Episode: Entangled AI Literacy Moving beyond skills-based definitions toward messy, relational understandings of literacyUnderstanding AI literacy as interconnected with ecological, data, knowledge-construction, epistemic, disciplinary, political, relational, creative, futures, and algorithmic dimensionsRecognizing how AI reveals existing entanglements rather than creating entirely new problemsEmbracing uncertainty and fluidity in defining what AI literacy means Creative Disobedience and Posthumanist Approaches Using AI tools in playful, experimental, and "disobedient" ways that highlight glitches and limitationsDrawing on posthumanist theory to decenter human exceptionalism and explore relational ontologiesConnecting with indigenous cosmologies and other-than-human ways of knowing Teaching With, Against, and About AI Creating space for diverse perspectives on AI rather than seeking consensusBalancing critique with curiosity and experimentationSupporting process-oriented, collaborative learning that uses AI to amplify rather than replace human creativityTrusting students' innate desire to create and make meaning Theory as Practice Making philosophical and theoretical frameworks accessible and playful for educatorsRecognizing that all teaching involves theory, whether we acknowledge it or notUsing AI tools to create rich digital artifacts for teaching and learningMoving beyond compliance-driven approaches to embrace complexity and emergenceThe conversation highlights how educators can move beyond binary thinking about AI to create learning environments that are both critically engaged and experimentally open. Rachel's work demonstrates how posthumanist theory can inform practical approaches to AI literacy that honor complexity while remaining grounded in the realities of teaching and learning. Rather than treating AI as either salvation or doom, this episode models an (admittedly fraught) third way: engaging with these tools as part of larger conversations about knowledge, creativity, relationality, and the future of education. The discussion emphasizes the importance of creating spaces where educators can explore their own AI literacy in "messy" ways while supporting students in developing critical and creative relationships with emerging technologies. Connect with Rachel's Work: LinkedIn (primary platform for sharing work)Substack (for arts-based integration of AI)UBC Master's in Educational Technology programEntangled AI Literacy Resource (created for educators)Support the show

    48 min

  8. 27/06/2025

    Marcus Luther Talks Leading and Learning in the Digital Teacher's Lounge

    In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I sit down with Marcus Luther, a 13th-year high school English teacher and co-host of The Broken Copier podcast. After spending his first eight years teaching in Arkansas, Marcus recently returned to the Pacific Northwest, bringing with him a wealth of classroom experience and a passion for teacher-centered conversations. Our discussion explores the evolving landscape of teacher community-building, from the early days of Teacher Twitter to the current fractured digital spaces where educators seek connection and growth. Key Concepts from the Episode: The Digital Teacher's Lounge How online spaces can recreate the collaborative spirit of in-person professional learning communitiesMoving beyond transactional networking toward authentic relationship-buildingThe role of digital platforms in sustaining teacher enthusiasm and preventing isolationCommunities of Practice Understanding teaching as fundamentally community work that extends beyond school wallsThe "generosity journey" of sharing resources and learning from fellow educatorsBalancing local collegial relationships with broader professional networksStorytelling and Resistance Addressing the vacuum of positive narratives about classroom possibilitiesThe urgent need to highlight what's working in public educationUsing authentic teacher voices to counter deficit-based reform narrativesNavigating Professional Boundaries Managing the relationship between classroom practice and public educator identityThe ethics of sharing experiences while maintaining privacySetting sustainable limits on development and growth outside the classroomMarcus brings a refreshing perspective on how educators can remain committed to the classroom while recognizing the power of broader professional community. His conviction that we need to tell better stories about the transformative potential of teaching offers hope in an era of educational uncertainty. Whether you're an early-career teacher seeking community or a veteran educator looking to reinvigorate your practice, this conversation demonstrates how authentic professional relationships can sustain both individual growth and collective advocacy for the teaching profession. Links: https://thebrokencopier.substack.com/ https://web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/marcusluther.bsky.social   Support the show

    55 min
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Conceptually Speaking is a show about exploring the cognitive processes and social practices that help us make sense of our world. As as teacher-scholar interested in the intersection of educational theory, practice, and scholarship, I host conversations with guests ranging from practicing educators to neuroscientists and literary scholars to YouTube video essayists. Each episode shares a common purpose: to consider, critique, and reconceptualize what we think and feel about education. If you enjoy the show and want to learn more, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, find me on Substack, and check out trevoraleo.com for more information, resources, and details on professional learning. 

Información

  • Creador
    Trevor Aleo
  • Años de actividad
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodios
    87
  • Clasificación
    Apto
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Conceptually Speaking
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    Conceptually Speaking