What if the English Language Arts (ELA) canon were not a fixed list of revered classic texts, but a dynamic network, constantly shifting across institutions and regions?

On Tuesday, Sarah Levine, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education, and Nichole Nomura, lecturer in English and associate director of the Literary Lab, explored this idea in their seminar titled “Connecting Canons and the English Language Arts (ELA) Curriculum.” Sponsored by the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA), the discussion took place in Wallenberg Hall, with an introduction by Senior Lecturer in English Alice Staveley.

Levine began by giving the audience a rare behind-the-scenes look, explaining that “research is not linear.” Their project began in 2016 with an exploration of existing datasets, focusing on what was missing or inaccurate. Drawing on their diverse backgrounds in English and education, Levine and Nomura collaborated to navigate and synthesize key questions. As they dug deeper, their questions evolved, shaping an iterative research process.

Nomura then addressed the literary canon itself. “One of the ways we think of the canon is as a list,” she noted, referring to elements such as a table of contents, a bibliography, or a works cited section. She then argued that this narrow perspective overlooks the wider implications of the canon – particularly how it is adapted in various educational contexts. Their research introduces a new approach: seeing the canon as a network of interconnected authors, texts, and institutional influences.

To bring this concept to life, Levine and Nomura introduced their Course Description Archive for Research (CDAR), a tool designed to map relationships in ELA curricula nationally. This digital archive enables them to transform static lists of texts into visual networks, revealing patterns that reflect and challenge cultural and educational priorities. Through CDAR, they discover unexpected connections and contradictions that suggest that the canon is not fixed, but instead changes and adapts with each educational setting.

The pair’s findings reveal groups of canonical authors that frequently appear together in university curricula, while others stand in isolation. Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, for example, are at the center of a dense network of authors of American literature, while authors such as Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm exist on more isolated “islands” not because of their canonical status but rather selectivity. of their inclusion in course materials – perhaps representing a single class in a single term at a single university in their data set.

The team’s research also sheds light on discrepancies between two- and four-year colleges. Using indicators such as author pronouns and representation of race, they found that female and non-white authors are more commonly taught at four-year universities, pointing to equity gaps that reinforce how canon and curriculum choices vary by of the type of institution.

A key aspect of Levine and Nomura’s work is their computational approach, a new and evolving method in the humanities that is complicated by the ephemeral nature of digital course descriptions. Many universities delete their online course listings each term, which presents a challenge for researchers collecting historical data. To solve this, Levine and Nomura use a combination of web scraping and web archiving—tools that allow them to both collect data in a timely manner and maintain a permanent archive. Levine described this two-pronged approach as essential to building a reliable and scalable data pipeline.

Using this method, Levine and Nomura compared ELA programs in eight US states, including public, private, and community college institutions. They analyzed which classes actually fall under the code of “English” at different institutions, creating a model that captures the nuances of each college’s approach to the subject. Their analysis even revealed surprises, such as the centrality of Toni Morrison in networks of university degree programs. In a network model, Morrison is more central than even William Shakespeare, showing the gaps between disparate groups and allowing students to engage with texts from a new perspective.

“Students can be empowered to take another class because they already know Morrison,” Nomura noted. “She might be the first black author a student meets in college.”

Levine and Nomura’s study reflects a larger question: How does the ELA canon adapt to modern concerns of representation and diversity? Their network analysis shows that authors like Morrison not only intersect with other disparate literary works in classrooms, but also provide a framework that encourages broader exploration in English at the college level. The project’s next steps involve expanding its scope to California’s public universities and high schools, examining syllabi and course descriptions at the district level to track the evolution of the canon from high school to higher education.

In the questions and answers that followed, faculty and students probed the researchers about the alignment between course descriptions and actual classroom content. The discussion reflected a common curiosity among participants about the complex, sometimes contradictory nature of curriculum design in English education.

Levine and Nomura’s paper offers an open look at the ELA canon, questioning whether today’s curricular choices provide students with a truly inclusive literary landscape or simply reproduce long-standing hierarchies. By rethinking the canon as a network rather than a static list, they offer new insight into how educational institutions might better adapt their English curricula to a rapidly changing world.