English Leadership Quarterly
English Leadership Quarterly helps department chairs, K–12 supervisors, and other leaders in their roles improving the quality of literacy instruction.
Calls for Manuscripts
Write for English Leadership Quarterly! ELQ has several open Calls for Manuscripts!
Upcoming themes include Learning and Leading with/through Change (vol. 44, no. 4; April 2022), Designing and Leading Equity and Social Justice-Oriented Professional Development and Learning (vol. 45, no. 1; August 2022), Leading for Text Selection in Contested and Turbulent Times (vol. 45, no. 2; October 2022), and Leading to Support and Learn with New Teachers (vol. 45, no. 3; February 2023). See details on (and deadlines for!) each of the Calls below.
Check out the submission guidelines and join the conversation! Questions? Contact editor Elaine Simos.
April 2022: Learning and Leading with/through Change
Submission Deadline: February 27, 2022
Progress Is Impossible Without Change. This concept keeps us relevant in the face of a changing landscape. The needs of consumers (in education that translates to students, educators, parents, etc.) continue to evolve as society changes, as technology progresses, and as our demographics change. When one piece of the puzzle changes, it creates a ripple effect that causes other parts to change. So one either adjusts and keeps moving, or stands still and gets run over, or at least passed by. Schools and districts are being asked to change on the fly without having the benefit of a factory shut down to retool. But in order to ensure that the education our students are receiving is relevant and prepares them to be successful adults, schools must change how we teach and what we teach. It’s hard to know where to start with the rapid evolution of current educational trends, but the main thing is to focus on what’s best for kids and keep moving forward.
Change Is a Process, Not an Event. There is no magic switch to flip or program that will make all the necessary changes happen overnight. Change is messy. Meaningful change requires a change of heart, a change in beliefs or attitudes, and a change in practice. Change is an action, but may require patience and always requires perseverance. Change that is purposeful has more impact than random change. . . . Effective professional learning will provide the framework to ensure that stakeholders receive the instruction, feedback and support that is needed to implement and sustain the desired change(s).
What supports do educators and students in a rapidly changing world need? Which methods are effective? How is that efficacy determined? What might get in the way of supporting and leading with/through change?
August 2022: Designing and Leading Equity and Social Justice-Oriented Professional Development and Learning
Submission Deadline: January 15, 2022
[Teachers] must also feel agentive and equipped to identify the features of professional development that do or do not support their development of [social justice] educational practices and be able to suggest and initiate alternative designs for their professional learning.
—Allison Skerrett, Amber Warrington, and Thea Williamson, English Education
Generative Principles for Professional Learning for Equity-Oriented Urban English Teachers
This first issue of English Leadership Quarterly for incoming editor Henry “Cody” Miller is concerned with professional development and learning that seeks to challenge curricular, pedagogical, and systemic inequities in our classrooms and schools. What does professional development/learning centered on equity and social justice look like in practice? How can professional development/learning lead us to develop practices that challenge racism, sexism, ableism, homo- and transphobia, along with other forms of oppression? How do we support new teachers and teacher candidates in developing equity and social justice practices? How can teacher educators work with teacher leaders to construct professional development/learning that challenges inequities in our field? How can challenging traditional, thus limited, ideas around professional development/learning create more equitable teaching practices? What does grassroots, teacher-lead professional development/learning look like?
Reference
Skerrett, A., Warrington, A., & Williamson, T. (2018). Generative principles for professional learning for equity-oriented urban English teachers. English Education, 50(2), 116–46.
October 2022: Leading for Text Selection in Contested and Turbulent Times
Submission Deadline: March 15, 2022
Feeling supported, feeling valued, and feeling empowered to place their students’ needs first through such actions such as intentional text selection are key elements in keeping ELA teachers in the classroom, affecting and inspiring the future leaders of our nation. Especially in our country’s current challenging and often divisive climate, it seems even more important that teachers feel free to choose texts that will help their students to critically engage with current events and topics that are often polarizing, such as race relations, socioeconomic challenges, and immigration policies and practices.
—Janine J. Darragh and Ashley S. Boyd
This issue of English Leadership Quarterly is concerned with the text selection process. Given the importance of department chairs and literacy leaders in selecting texts, this issue seeks to understand how text selection processes can be expanded, critiqued, and reimagined in our contemporary political moment. How can we expand the types of texts we teach to engage in cross-textual conversations with students? How can we pair new texts with new forms of assessment? How do we critically analyze what we teach in curricular units in order to make changes? How can we expand ideas and definitions of “texts” in ELA curriculum to include multimodal texts as well as new, emerging types of texts? How do we select texts that honor the realities of historically marginalized communities without centering and replicating trauma? How do we select texts at a time in which some states are passing de facto curricular bans on texts that address historical and contemporary oppression? These are just some questions that could be considered for this issue.
Reference
Darragh, J. J., & Boyd, A. S. (2019). Text selection: Perceptions of novice vs. veteran teachers. Action in Teacher Education, 41(1), 61–78.
February 2023: Leading to Support and Learn with New Teachers
Submission Deadline: May 15, 2022
[New teachers] have exactly as much right to speak and be involved in [their] first year as [they] do in [their] twentieth. Just as experience should be listened to, so should the fresh perspective of a teacher early in their career.
—Tom Rademacher
This issue of English Leadership Quarterly is focused on supporting new teachers as they enter our field and departments while simultaneously amplifying the wisdom and ideas of new English teachers. This issue seeks to be a dialogue between new teachers and teachers with more experience. Rather than replicating a hierarchy based on experience, this issue intends to discuss how department chairs and literacy leaders can support new teachers, and how new teachers can inform the work of department chairs and literacy leaders. What can the experiences of first year teachers tell us about how to approach the work of leading a department? How can teacher mentorship for new teachers be positioned as a learning partnership between mentors and mentees? What do department chairs and literacy leaders need to know about being a new teacher in our current moment? What do new teachers need the most from department chairs and literacy leaders? These are just some questions that could be considered for this issue. Manuscripts co-written by new teachers and/or mentor teachers, department chairs, and teacher educators are highly encouraged for this issue.
Reference
Rademacher, T. (2017). It won’t be easy: An exceedingly honest (and slightly unprofessional) love letter to teaching. University of Minnesota Press.