JAVÃûÅ®ÓŹÝ

I am a professor of English Education. My academic training is in both English education and education history methods. I teach courses on young adult literature and English teaching methods for pre-service teachers and graduate seminars on backwards design, secondary-level composition, education and the media, and education history.

My new book, tells the story of 144 children of Nazi scientists who moved to El Paso, Texas, in 1946 as part of Operation Paperclip. I compare their experiences in El Paso public schools with those of Mexican American students who made up the majority of the city’s public school population. It is a story of racial segregation, school inequity, and a patriotic curriculum that was more inviting to the children of fascists than some American-born citizens; it also reveals how political assimilation has been treated by schools as an easier, more viable project than racial or ethnic assimilation.
My writing has been published in academic journals including the Journal of American History, the History of Education Quarterly, American Quarterly, Research in Teaching English, and English Education. My work has also appeared in the Boston Review, TIME magazine, the Washington Post, and El Paso Matters.

In the summer of 2021, I co-directed a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for Teachers titled “Making Good Reader and Citizens: The History of Literature Instruction in American Schools.” From 2005 to 2011, I directed the West Texas Writing Project, a branch of the National Writing Project and from 2016-2019 I served as the council historian for the National Council of Teachers of English.

Scholarly Interests

• Schools, race, and citizenship
• The history of literature instruction
• Literature and civic virtues
• Teachers' Professional Writing and Development
• Education Writing and Reporting

 Selected Publications

(JAVÃûÅ®ÓÅ¹Ý of Chicago Press, 2022).

"," American Quarterly 71 (December 2019): 945-967.

"." Ansley Erickson and Ernest Morrell​, eds., Educating Harlem: A Century of Schooling and Resistance in a Black Community  (Columbia JAVÃûÅ®ÓÅ¹Ý Press, 2019), 119-137. 

“,” Washington Post, September 21, 2018.

"Between the School and the Academy: The Struggle to Promote Practitioner-Based Education Research at Columbia JAVÃûÅ®ÓŹÝ's Lincoln School, 1917-1935." History of Education Quarterly 54 (February 2016): 90-114.

"The Popularization of High School Poetry Instruction, 1920-1940." Research in the Teaching of English (August 2015): 111-118.

(JAVÃûÅ®ÓÅ¹Ý of Chicago Press, 2012).

Select Public-Facing Writing and Interviews

Slate Magazine, September 23, 2024.

Interview with Philip Shackelford,  Aired on June 28, 2022.

Interview with Annie Rosenthal, Marfa Public Radio. “ Aired on May 26, 2022.

Boston Review, March 21, 2022.

TIME magazine, February 24, 2022.

“,” Washington Post, February 8, 2022.

“,” El Paso Matters, September 16, 2021. Co-written with Andrew Newman.

UTEP Faculty Profile:

Contact Information

Email: jperrillo@utep.edu

Phone: 915-747-5334

Hudspeth Hall 121

Education

Ph.D, New York JAVÃûÅ®ÓŹÝ

M.A., JAVÃûÅ®ÓÅ¹Ý of Maryland, College Park

B.A., JAVÃûÅ®ÓÅ¹Ý of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Publications