Research: “For me, it’s the empathy piece”: ELA Department Chairs’ Perspectives on Teaching Literature in Difficult Times

This article examines how ELA department chairs envision their work as it relates to teaching literature and the conceptions of accountability and censorship that inform their text selections for classroom use. Participants reported empathy development as the preeminent rationale for reading literature with adolescents. While the expectation for narrative empathy is a widely shared outcome, how participants select literature for instruction varies and is informed by community influences and legislative policies involving censorship and the removal of texts from classroom and school libraries.