Tennessee ELA standards committee instructs Department to revise appendices and glossary; removes credit-hour guidance, debates "literary merit" and AI concerns

The Tennessee State Board of Education English Language Arts Standards Recommendation Committee spent most of its Oct. 21, 2025 meeting reviewing appendix materials and the glossary attached to the draft ELA standards, directing multiple edits and asking the Department of Education to implement them.

Brianna, a Department of Education staff member supporting the committee, told members the department had two clarifications to offer: "I confirmed with the Tennessee Department of Education IT team, Microsoft Copilot is allowed in the event that you're using Microsoft Copilot specifically," and that credit hours are a local determination: "credit hours are a local decision. So we will need to remove the credit hour numbers." The committee instructed staff to remove the numeric credit-hour entries and to continue drafting the appendix and glossary edits for committee review.

Committee members worked through appendices A–G page by page. They decided to remove an older set of professional learning community material from the appendix (members said the guidance was outdated), to flag multiple tables and figure numbers for later numbering, and…