2025

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. https://theliteracyandurbanschoolsjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/issue-1-journal-of-literacy-and-urban-schools.pdf

Thomas, P.L. (2025). Breaking free of the “war,” “crisis,” and “miracle” cycles of reading policy and practice. In T.A. Price & M. McNulty (eds.), Public spaces, politics, and policy: historical entanglements with irrational momentism (pp. 93-112). Bloomsbury.

Thomas, P.L. (2025, July 28). There is no literacy crisis in the U.S. Here’s what’s really happening. The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/474j758

Chosen for ARS POETICA III exhibition at the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum this fall: my mother had a million faces (3 pictures). See catalogue HERE

Thomas, P.L. (2025). Black Widow underestimated and hypersexualized: “I am what I am.” Brill.

Thomas, P.L. (2025). Haruki Murakami’s 7 stories: “It’s quite easy to become Men Without Women.” In J. Milburn (ed.), Haruki Murakami and philosophical concepts (pp. 65-72). Palgrave.

Thomas, P.L. (2025). Navigating (another) reading crisis as an administrator: Rethinking the “science of reading” movement. Journal of School Administration, Research and Development, 10(1), 38-48. https://ojed.org/JSARD/article/view/6706

2024

Thomas, P.L. (2024, November). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: For all ELA teachers, “the time is always now.” English Journal, 114(2), 21-26. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024114221

Thomas, P.L. (2024, September). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: The media continue to misread teaching reading and literacy. English Journal, 114(1), 14-19. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024114114

Thomas, P.L. (2024, May). Teaching English in the “science of reading” era: We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: Selling a story of reading. English Journal, 113(5), 16-22. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024113516

Thomas, P.L. (2024, March). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: The long (and tedious) history of reading crisis. English Journal, 113(4), 21-26. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024113421

2023

Thomas, P.L. (2023, November). Everything you know is wrong: The “science of reading” era of reading legislation. Perspectives and Provocations, (11), 1-17. https://drive.google.com/file/d/12fAfLV1pCh7ZXV-UFsTftFd7y_MLSK-O/view

Compton-Lilly, C., Spence, L.K., Thomas, P.L. & Decker, S.L. (2023). Stories grounded in decades of research: What we truly know about the teaching of reading. Reading Teacher, 77(3), 392-400. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2258

Thomas, P.L. (2023). The science of reading era: Seeking the “science” in yet another anti-teacher movement. Journal of Reading Recovery, 22(5), 5-17.

Thomas, P.L. (2023). The “science of reading,” education faddism, and the failure to honor the intellectual lives of all children: On deficit lenses and ignoring class and race stereotyping. Voices in the Middle, 30(3), 17-21. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/vm202332439

2022

How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students: A Primer for Parents, Policy Makers, and People Who Care (2nd Edition) – [first edition]

The Science of Reading Movement: The Never-Ending Debate and the Need for a Different Approach to Reading Instruction (policy brief) – NEPC

A Critical Examination of Grade Retention as Reading Policy (white paper). Prepared for the Ohio Education Association in response to Ohio’s “Third Grade Reading Guarantee”, September 15, 2022

The Never-Ending Debate and the Need for a Different Approach to Reading Instruction – NCTE Blog

“Science of Reading” Media Advocacy Continues to Mislead – RRC

2021

A conversation with Paul Thomas. (2021). Talking Points, 32(2), 24-30. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/tp202131300

2020

Thomas, P.L. (2020). How to end the Reading War and serve the literacy needs of all students: A primer for parents, policy makers, and people who care. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Thomas, P.L. (2020). The critical redneck experience: “How can anybody know/How they got to be this way?” [and] Excavating intimacy, privacy, and consent as youth in a hostile world.  In S.R. Steinberg & B. Down (eds.), The SAGE handbook of critical pedagogies (pp. xx-xx). London: SAGE Publishing.

2019

Thomas, P.L. (2019). The ethical dilemma of satire in an era of fake news and the brave new world of social media. In K.H. Turner (ed.). The ethics of digital literacy: Developing knowledge and skills across grade levels (pp. 171-177). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Thomas, P.L. (2019). Reflection: Teaching and writing as activism: Can scholars be too literal in post-truth Trumplandia? In S.L. Raye, S. Masta, S.T. Cook, & J. Burdick (eds.), Ideating pedagogy in troubled times: Approaches to identity, theory, teaching and research (pp. 157-164). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Thomas, P.L. (2019, Fall). War in the time of commas, grammar Nazis (post-apostrophe literature), like two lower-case pronouns. Journal of Language and Literacy Education, 15(2). Retrieved from http://jolle.coe.uga.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Thomas_JoLLE19.pdf

Thomas, P.L. (2019). Teaching writing as journey, not destination: Essays exploring what “teaching writing” means. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Marakoff, K., & Thomas, P.L. (2019, March 25). Bridging the writing gap: Centering student voices in high school and college writing. Writer Who Care. Retrieved from https://writerswhocare.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/bridging-the-writing-gap-centering-student-voices-in-high-school-and-college-writing/

Thomas, P.L. (2019). History of violence: Guns, U.S. education, and American exceptionalism. In S. Shaffer, G. Rumohr-Voskuil, & S. T. Bickmore (ed.), Contending with Gun Violence in the English Language Classroom (pp. 9-15). New York, NY: Routledge.

Thomas, P.L. (2019). From Marvel’s Daredevil to Netflix’s Defenders: Is justice blind? In S. Eckard (ed.), Comic connections: Building character and theme (pp. 81-98). New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield.

2018

Goering, C., & Thomas, P.L., eds. (2018). Critical media literacy and fake news in post-truth America. Boston, MA: Brill.

Thomas, P.L. (2018). Wonder Woman: Reading and teaching feminism with an Amazonian princess in an era of Jessica Jones. In S. Eckard (ed.), Comic connections: Reflecting on women in popular culture (pp. 21-37). New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield.

Thomas, P.L., & Goering, C.Z. (2018). Speaking truth to power in English Journal, 2013–18: A retrospective. English Journal, 107(6), 119-121.

Thomas, P.L. (2018, Spring). What literacy, and for whom, why? Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 33(2), 4-7.