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Calls for Manuscripts

All manuscripts should be submitted via the Editorial Manager system.

General Interest Submissions

We publish articles of general interest as space is available. You may submit manuscripts on any topic that will appeal to EJ readers. Remember that EJ articles center classroom practice and contextualize it in sound research and theory. As you know, EJ readers appreciate articles that show real students and teachers engaged in meaningful teaching and learning. Manuscripts that foreground critical approaches to secondary English language arts and move the field toward justice for marginalized youth will be prioritized. Regular manuscript guidelines regarding length and style apply.

Upcoming Issues

Teaching with Hope, Teaching for Justice
Volume 113, Issue 1
Submission Deadline: February 1, 2023
Publication Date: September 2023

New editorship: Amy Burke, Aimee Hendrix-Soto, and Mary Amanda (Mandy) Stewart.

For our first issue of EJ, we invite manuscripts that speak to the existing wisdom of practicing ELAR teachers and their students, literacy teacher educators, and literacy researchers. Over the last two years, we have collectively experienced a global pandemic, civil unrest and disobedience in response to police and state-sanctioned violence, and laws restricting and censoring content and texts. As always, some communities experienced significantly greater hardship and were disproportionately affected by these events.

In that spirit, we encourage submissions that may disrupt what is considered best practices or that question long-held assumptions about learners and literacy teaching. How have you adjusted your teaching in response to the new normals (e.g., pandemic adjustments, civil unrest, restrictive legislation, and censorship)? Where have you found pockets of light that have allowed you to sustain yourself, your students, and your communities? In places where justice work seems impossible but is most crucially needed, what work you are doing?

As always, we also publish articles of general interest as space is available. You may submit manuscripts on any topic that will appeal to EJ readers. Remember that EJ articles foreground classroom practice and contextualize it in sound research and theory. As you know, our readers appreciate articles that show real students and teachers in real classrooms, engaged in authentic teaching and learning. Regular manuscript guidelines regarding length and style apply. Please email us at EnglishJournalEditors2023@gmail.com with any questions.

PERSPECTIVES AND POSSIBILITIES
Volume 113, Issue 2
Submission Deadline: March 15, 2023
Publication Date: November 2023

In this unthemed issue, you may submit manuscripts on any topic that will appeal to EJ readers. Remember that EJ articles center classroom practice and contextualize it in sound research and theory. As you know, EJ readers appreciate articles that show real students and teachers engaged in meaningful teaching and learning. Manuscripts that foreground critical approaches to secondary English language arts and move the field toward justice for marginalized youth will be prioritized. Regular manuscript guidelines regarding length and style apply.

Book Banning and Censorship: Resistance in the ELAR Classroom
Volume 113, Issue 3
Submission Deadline: April 1, 2023
Publication Date: January 2024

New editorship: Amy Burke, Aimee Hendrix-Soto, and Mary Amanda (Mandy) Stewart.

Literacy and teaching have always been political acts (Freire 43, ch. 1; Willis and Harris 72). In a time when our democratic norms have been challenged perhaps more strongly than ever before, classrooms must remain spaces to engage with ideas without fear of recrimination. However, since 2021, both state legislatures and local school boards across the United States have sought to more greatly control educational discourse through book bans (see PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans) and the regulation of what topics can and cannot be discussed in classrooms (Friedman and Johnson n.p.). As of August 2022, at least six states have either proposed or passed legislation calling for the removal of books from school libraries and/or classrooms (Jensen n.p.). In Virginia, some lawmakers proposed outlawing the sale of certain books at privately owned businesses, such as Barnes & Noble (Natanson n.p.). At the same time, politically motivated groups have strategically taken over school boards in some places, with the newly configured boards enacting policies at the local level that even more greatly restrict book access and topics of classroom discussion (Goodman n.p.). In many instances, books and topics that are banned involve already marginalized groups, such as LGBTQIA+ and/or BIPOC persons, and often include material of a sexual nature (Robinson; Friedman and Johnson).

In addition to the consequences for educators outlined directly in these laws and/or policies (e.g., loss of job, suspension or loss of teaching licensure, loss of district accreditation), there are also additional material, panopticon-like (Bentham and Bosovic 43; Foucault 195) consequences, which in many cases seem to be the unspoken intent of the policies in the first place: when the fear is great enough, people surveil themselves. Examples of this include school districts preemptively removing all books from classroom libraries, even those not on “the list,” and the preemptive discontinuation of book clubs although they are still legally allowed (Richardson Independent School District n.p.). In another instance, a city government forced its public library to remove a Twitter post which, during the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, simply listed the ten most widely banned books, and then apologized on behalf of the library for appearing to court controversy (Zheng n.p.).

While these actions certainly are not without precedent (e.g, the McCarthy Red Scare; 1980s Satanic panic), history also shows us the importance of active resistance in the face of government censorship. Resistance can take many forms and occur in different contexts. We often conceptualize resistance as occurring in public spaces; for example, one may speak out against a proposed policy at a school board meeting or participate in a march on public streets. However, many forms of resistance occur within more private spaces. Drawing on Collins’s Black feminist epistemological frame, these acts are “everyday acts of resistance” (37). These “everyday acts” might include teachers who have been barred from using certain books in their classroom, but still work to actively build and maintain a classroom community of respect, kindness, and empathy, especially for those different from themselves. Or perhaps a teacher uses their district’s required materials, but in such a way that difficult and/or topical issues are still addressed through those texts. Youth themselves also enact everyday ways of resistance, such as through not engaging in work in which they are not represented or that is not meaningful to their lives.

For this themed issue, we are interested in (1) the stories of how laws and policies (or the threat thereof) have caused material consequences for your teaching, research, or work more broadly; (2) forms of resistance you and/or your students may have engaged in or experienced in order to counter attempts to control access to books, discourse, and ideas; and (3) practice-based research you have conducted that directly addresses or relates to these issues.

Works Cited

Freidman, Jonathan, and Johnson, Nadine Farid. “Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools.” PEN America, 11 Oct. 2022, https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/.

Bentham, Jeremy. The Panopticon Writings. Edited by Miran Božovič, Verso, 2011.

“Book Titles in Schools.” Richardson Independent School District, 29 Sept. 2021, https://web.risd.org/home/book-titles-in-schools/.

Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2022.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan, 2nd ed., Vintage, 1991.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 50th Anniversary Edition. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Goodman, J. David. “How a Christian Cellphone Company Became a Rising Force in Texas Politics.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Oct. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/05/us/texas-patriot-mobile.html.

Jensen, Kelly. “States That Have Enacted Book Ban Laws: Book Censorship News, August 26, 2022.” BOOK RIOT, 25 Aug. 2022, https://bookriot.com/states-that-have-enacted-book-ban-laws-2022/.

Natanson, Hannah. “Judge Thwarts Va.. Republicans’ Effort to Limit Book Sales at Barnes & Noble.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 2 Sept. 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/30/barnes-and-noble-virginia-book-ban/.

Robinson, Ishena. “Anti-Critical Race Theory and Banned Books Halt Justice.” Legal Defense Fund, 20 Sept. 2022, https://www.naacpldf.org/critical-race-theory-banned-books/.

Willis, Arlette Ingram, and Violet J. Harris. “Political acts: Literacy learning and teaching.” Reading Research Quarterly35.1 (2000): 72-88.

Zheng, Lili. “Keller Orders Removal of Public Library’s Post Promoting Banned Books Week.” NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, 21 Sept. 2022, https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/keller-orders-removal-of-public-librarys-post-promoting-banned-books-week/3077899/.

PERSPECTIVES AND POSSIBILITIES
Volume 113, Issue 4
Submission Deadline: June 1, 2023
Publication Date: March 2024

What Is English?
Volume 113, Issue 5
Submission Deadline: August 1, 2023
Publication Date: May 2024

New editorship: Amy Burke, Aimee Hendrix-Soto, and Mary Amanda (Mandy) Stewart.

For this issue, we ask teachers, researchers, and leaders in English and English language arts to consider the field today. What is it? What are its aims? What should it be? What should its aims be?

This call is an opportunity to revisit a question asked by writing scholar Peter Elbow almost 35 years ago. In 1987, selected representatives of several professional organizations—including, among others, NCTE, the Modern Language Association (MLA), the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), and the Conference on English Education (CEE; now known as English Language Arts Teacher Educators, or ELATE)—convened the second English Coalition Conference. (The first conference was held in the 1960s.) Sixty people, organized across three levels (elementary, secondary, and university), met across three weeks with this stated goal:

to reach across levels of schooling in a constructive way; to see if consensus about the teaching of English could be achieved; and to identify solutions to the problems that teachers of English have been encountering as a result of changes in the student population, in institutional and community circumstances, and in the field itself. (Franklin 2, qtd. in Elbow 5)

Many participants felt English teachers across K–12 and university settings taught English studies as a “tripod, one of whose legs was language, another writing, and the third literature” (Lloyd-Jones and Lunsford xx). This, they argued, made the field one in which the subject matter was front and center—not students and teachers—and in which students were positioned as passive receivers of knowledge. Participants argued that addressing the conditions of their time called for “a fresh view of the field” (Lloyd-Jones and Lunsford xx). Thus, conference participants discussed what students should develop as a result of their formal schooling in English—in terms of language, writing, literature, cultural literacy, and the impact of television and other media (Lloyd-Jones and Lunsford xix).

Yet while there was much debate about foundational issues and concerns in the teaching of English, the 1987 conference participants concurred that there were aspects of English that are central to democracy, such as reading, writing, speaking, and listening to increase appreciation of diversity and of divergent viewpoints. Based on the conversations across the three weeks, writing scholar Peter Elbow suggested that while English was difficult (impossible?) to define, “perhaps English can end up being a discipline that is, above all, about making knowledge rather than about studying already existing knowledge” (Elbow 118).

Now, 35 years since this group of teachers and scholars convened, the world is in many ways radically different. We have been shaped by periods of economic growth and recession, increased domestic terrorism, climate change, and war. Simultaneously, we have experienced the explosion of the internet, which has changed how we interact with texts and one another, easing access to information and making dis- and misinformation more rampant. Demographic shifts in the United States mean that while White children still make up the majority of students, they will not do so in the coming years. More than ever, our classrooms represent a rich array of cultures and sophisticated language variations of English. And although the United States and other English-speaking nations have a rich, even if overlooked, history of multilingualism, this has increased due to global migration trends as well as transnational ways of living influenced by technology and media. In short, there have been even more “changes in the student population, in institutional and community circumstances, and in the field itself,” which simultaneously means some things haven’t changed at all.

As we take stock of the field today, what are the challenges? Where has English become more open, more responsive, more critical, more participatory? What still needs to change in order to achieve equity and justice? For this call, we ask you to provide readers with a fresh, new view of the field as you consider the question Peter Elbow chose as the title of his book reflecting on the 1987 English Coalition Conference: What is English?

Works Cited

Elbow, Peter. What Is English? Modern Language Association of America, 1990.

Franklin, Phyllis. Letter to James Morris, program director, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 16 Aug. 1989.

Lloyd-Jones, Richard, and Lunsford, Andrea A., editors. The English Coalition Conference: Democracy through Language. National Council of Teachers of English, 1989.

PERSPECTIVES AND POSSIBILITIES
Volume 113, Issue 6
Submission Deadline: November 1, 2023
Publication Date: July 2024

Decentering the E: Teaching the Language Arts with a Biliteracy Stance
(Volume 114, Issue 1)
Submission Deadline: February 1, 2024
Publication Date: September 2024

Most of us teach students who speak or have exposure to languages other than English because they are heritage, home, or first languages. We teach other students who have acquired a language in addition to English to varying degrees of proficiency through coursework, dual-language programs, or life experiences. In fact, English monolingualism is not the norm, which explains why NCTE has six official documents on its website that provide reasons and guidance for taking a biliteracy, rather than just a literacy, stance in English language arts (ELA) instruction.

For example, NCTE has highlighted the need to support multilingual writers (“CCCC Statement”) by acknowledging that it is a student’s right to use their heritage or home language in their classroom writing (“Resolution on the Student’s Right”). This support can occur through innovative translanguaging approaches to instruction where the teacher can facilitate meaning-making across languages (Seltzer and de los Ríos). Most recently, NCTE’s “Position Paper on the Role of English Teachers in Educating English Language Learners (ELLs)” (Da Silva et al.) has encouraged teachers to invite students’ home languages into the classroom. Undoubtedly, literacies in one language can transfer to another, which is why much early childhood research clearly illustrates the importance of learning to read in the home language (Borman et al.). Highly related to secondary classrooms, Da Silva et al. encourage bilingual mentor texts for writing and multilingual word walls, as well as discussion, reading, note-taking, and journal entries in the home language.

Notably, the authors (Da Silva et al.) correctly state that teachers do not need to speak their students’ languages in order to engage in these translanguaging strategies. Clearly, this position paper highlights that (English) language arts educators are key players in the equitable education of emergent bilinguals, students in the dynamic process of acquiring English as an additional language, also referred to as English learners.

Further, NCTE’s “Resolution on English-Only Instructional Policies” provides clear evidence of various problems with an English-only stance, supported by research on second-language acquisition (Menken and Sánchez; Seltzer ), literacy (de los Ríos et al.), and identity (Norton 104). The “CCCC Guideline on the National Language Policy” illustrates why we must resist ideas of exclusively using English in the English classroom. Indeed, much research suggests there is great academic value in encouraging students to use all their languaging practices for learning (de los Ríos and Seltzer; Stewart and Hansen-Thomas). Although these often-unwritten policies might be well-intentioned, they can actually put students in a linguistic straightjacket (Ortega 33) which inhibits their literacy learning, meaning-making, and ability to engage critically with the ELA content. Thus, English-only policies become counterproductive, inhibiting students’ learning. Finally, CCCC notes that English-only policies are not only oppressive, but also dehumanizing. Language is people. When we prohibit or even unconsciously ignore someone’s languaging practices, we ignore much of who they are, not affirming their full humanity in our classrooms.

Yet many of us cannot see a way out of decades-old English-only policies that might even make sense to us on some levels. How can we include languages other than English in our ELA classroom if we do not speak those languages? What if our classroom has a large number of languages represented by emergent bilinguals, heritage speakers, and other bilinguals?

Certainly, there are many obstacles, yet also promising practices from innovative ELA educators who want to acknowledge multiple languages in their classroom (Herrera and España). For this issue, we want to hear those stories. How do you find out what languages your students possess? How do you invite those languages into the classroom? How do you teach reading or writing through an equity lens that engages all students’ languages? What have you done to teach biliteracy and help students take pride in their language abilities? How have you included monolingual students in these practices, and what has been the outcome? If you have received pushback, how have you defended your multilingual curricular and instructional practices? How have you collaborated with students, families, community members, and colleagues to implement your multilingual ideas?

Works Cited

Borman, Geoffrey D., et al. “A Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effectiveness of Descubriendo la Lectura.” American Educational Research Journal, vol. 57, no. 5, 2020, pp. 1995–2020, doi.org/10.3102/0002831219890612.

“CCCC Guideline on the National Language Policy.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2015, cccc.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/nationallangpolicy.

“CCCC Statement on Second Language Writing and Multilingual Writers.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2020, cccc.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/secondlangwriting?_gl=1*ajudvz*_ga*MjAyMTQ5MDE5OC4xNjU4Nzg3MTQ2.

Da Silva, Nicole, et al. “NCTE Position Paper on the Role of English Teachers in Educating English Language Learners (ELLs).” National Council of Teachers of English, 6 Mar. 2020, ncte.org/statement/teaching-english-ells/.

De los Ríos, Cati V., and K. Seltzer. “Translanguaging, Coloniality, and English Classrooms: An Exploration of Two Bicoastal Urban Classrooms.” Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 52, no. 1, 2017, pp. 55–76. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44821287.

De los Ríos, Cati V., et al. “Upending Colonial Practices: Toward Repairing Harm in English Education.” Theory Into Practice, vol. 58, no. 4, 2019, pp. 359–67, doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2019.1626615.

Herrera, L. Y., and Carla España. “Se hace camino al andar: Translanguaging Pedagogy for Justice.” English Journal, vol. 111, no. 5, 2022, pp. 27–34.

Menken, Kate, and María Teresa Sánchez. “Translanguaging in English-Only Schools: From Pedagogy to Stance in the Disruption of Monolingual Policies and Practices.” TESOL Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 3, 2019, pp. 741–67, doi.org/10.1002/tesq.513.

Norton, B. “Identity, Literacy, and the Multilingual Classrom.” The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and Bilingual Education, edited by Stephen May, Routledge, 2014, pp. 103–22.

Ortega, Lourdes. “Ways Forward for a Bi/Multilingual Turn in SLA.” The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and Bilingual Education, edited by Stephen May, Routledge, 2014, pp. 32–53.

“Resolution on English-Only Instructional Policies.” National Council of Teachers of English, 30 Nov. 2008, ncte.org/statement/englishonlypolicies/.

“Resolution on the Student’s Right to Incorporate Heritage and Home Languages in Writing.” National Council of Teachers of English, 20 Nov. 2011, ncte.org/statement/homelanguages/.

Seltzer, Kate. “Reconceptualizing ‘Home’ and ‘School’ Language: Taking a Critical Translingual Approach in the English Classroom.” TESOL Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 4, 2019, pp. 986–1007, doi.org/10.1002/tesq.530.

Seltzer, Kate, and Cati V. de los Ríos. “Understanding Translanguaging in US Literacy Classrooms: Reframing Bi-/Multilingualism as the Norm.” National Council of Teachers of English, 2021, ncte.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SquireOfficePolicyBrief_Translanguaging_April2021.pdf.

Stewart, Mary Amanda, and Holly Hansen-Thomas. “Sanctioning a Space for Translanguaging in the Secondary English Classroom: A Case of a Transnational Youth.” Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 50, no. 4, 2016, pp. 450–72.

Ongoing Features

Speaking My Mind

We invite you to speak out on an issue that concerns you about English language arts teaching and learning. If your essay is published, it will appear with your photo in a future issue of EJ. We welcome essays of 1,000 to 1,500 words, as well as inquiries regarding possible subjects.

Poetry

Editors: Alexa Garvoille, MFA Program, Creative Writing, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia

“To live in this world / you must be able / to do three things: / to love what is mortal; / to hold it / against your bones knowing / your life depends on it; / and, when the time comes to let it go, / to let it go.” These words from Mary Oliver’s poem “In Blackwater Woods” speak not only to how to live in this world but also to how we learn and teach. As teachers, we hold against our bones so much that our lives depend on—helping a student, learning a difficult concept, speaking up for justice, or reading a favorite text—but then must learn to let go. In the pages of English Journal, we look to publish well-crafted poems that connect our readers to topics central to English education: the impact of reading and writing on young people, words and language, classroom stories, and reflections on teaching and learning. Poetry reminds us, as educators, how to live in this world.

Submit your work by emailing an attachment to englishjournalpoetry@gmail.com. Use the subject line “Poetry Submission for Review.” The first page of the attached document should be a cover sheet that includes your name, address, email, and a two-sentence biographical sketch. In your bio, include how long you have been a member of NCTE, if applicable, and a publishable contact email. Following the cover sheet, include one to five original poems in the same document. Though we welcome work of any length, shorter pieces (thirty lines and under) often work best for the journal. Poems must be original and not previously published. Simultaneous submissions are welcome, though writers must immediately withdraw from consideration any poems that are to be published elsewhere by contacting the editors via email.

Poets whose work is published will receive two complimentary copies of the issue in which their work appears. Additional inquiries about poetry submissions may be directed to the coeditors at englishjournalpoetry@gmail.com. We look forward to reading and celebrating your work.

Original Photography

Teacher photographs of classroom scenes and individual students are welcome. Photographs may be uploaded to Editorial Manager at the address above in any standard image format at 300 dpi. Photos should be accompanied by complete identification: teacher/photographer’s name, location of scene, and date photograph was taken. If faces are clearly visible, names of those photographed should be included, along with their statement of permission for the photograph to be reproduced in EJ.

Original Cartoons

Cartoons should depict scenes or ideas potentially amusing to English language arts teachers. They can be submitted to Editorial Manager at the address above; we can accept any standard graphics format at 300 dpi.

For information on writing for the EJ columns, see the Columns and Column Editors page.

For EJ Submission Guidelines, see Write for Us.

For more information, contact englishjournal@ncte.org.