February Newsletter
SSO, Take 2, and Call for Submissions
Winter Conference - Recap from Faculty Advisor Peter Smagorinsky
Thanks to all who supported the just-concluded JoLLE Winter Conference. Please give the editorial board a hand for the tremendous work it takes to put this event on. It’s so heartening to see what talented doctoral students can do when unleashed on activities like the journal and the conference, and the other work they do in LLEGO, Children’s Lit Conference, and other activities I hope I’m not overlooking.
There were many highlights. For me personally, it’d be hard to top the plenary session featuring Little Rock 9 pioneer Elizabeth Eckford and her companions, Eurydice Stanley and her 15-yr-old daughter Grace. When she integrated the LR schools in 1957, I was 4 years old and ready to enter the segregated schools of Virginia (finally integrated, in my district 10 miles from Washington, DC, when I was in 7th grade, when one Black student was admitted). I was a very slow-awakening kid to social issues—I had my own problems!!—so had little sense of what was happening at the time, but grew to admire people who risked their lives to change the world as I grew through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood during the Civil Rights movement. Their session on the integration of LR schools was very moving for old cusses like me, and I think many many others in the audience.
We have to give thanks and credit to both this year’s board, and those preceding it, for helping to establish the journal and conference to the point where people of this stature want to come and be part of it, and by extension, our department. We actually didn’t begin by inviting this group; they applied through the regular process, but whoaaa, when we saw this one, we amplified it to plenary status and provided travel support. We have much to look forward to in future conferences that continue to build on this legacy. Muchas gracias to all.
To see more information about our winter conference, click here.
Socializing with the Ghosts of Our Racial Past: Embracing Traumatic Teaching and Learning in Literacy Education By Justin Grinage, University of Minnesota
The poem “Strange Fruit,” written by Abel Meeropol in 1937 and then later recorded as a song by Billie Holiday in 1939, captures the haunting imagery of racial violence in the United States. It acts as an extended metaphor, comparing the victims of Jim Crow-era lynching to fruit hanging from trees. The metaphor effectively illustrates the function of racial violence as crucial to the construction and subsequent growth of the U.S. as a racist nation-state (Martinot, 2010). The imagery of blood-splattered roots and leaves, with a slight hint of burning flesh lingering after the sweet smell of flowers, is an expression of the naturalization of black death as tied to white vitality. The health of the white tree, its growth indicating its strength, bears the strange fruit of black bodies that serve to rot in the sun and become food for the crows once the fruit has perished. Blackness becomes the lifeblood for the tree; the more hanging fruits the tree produces, the more one might comment on its vitality. As the fruit continues to rot, scorched by the sun and blown by the wind, the tree loosens its grip on the fruit and it becomes one with the earth, destined to provide the seeds for new trees to sprout, which will produce new fruit to rot.
To read the rest of this month's Scholars Speak Out article, click here.
During the 2017 – 2018 academic year, the SSO section of JoLLE will feature essays by scholars such as professors, teachers, students, and administrators who are engaging with discussions around social justice issues and racism in education and in modern society. Please click here for more information about this ongoing series.
Take 2 Introduction by Alexandra Berglund, Production Editor
Storytime is an integral part of every preschool classroom. This portion of each school day is an opportunity for everyone in class to come together, sit down at a communal area, and immerse themselves in a book. Shared reading creates lasting impacts in students’ reading lives,
as children learn, grow, and imagine with every turn of the page. Karen Kindle’s (2011) piece "Same Book, Different Experience: A Comparison of Shared Reading in Preschool Classrooms" demonstrates the influence this experience has on students and how this time is largely shaped by
teachers’ beliefs and instructional decisions. Kindle highlights the boundless benefits of shared reading, and notes that, while the advantages are many, there is no one agreed upon method of this practice. With endless
variations of teaching style, the outcome experienced by students also differs. Kindle’s work investigates the shared reading practices in four classrooms and unearths the key for shared reading success. Teachers must read to their students with both intentionality and purpose.
The International Literacy Association annually publishes a “What’s Hot in Literacy Report,” and this year’s record shows that early literacy is currently the most important topic in
literacy debates around the world. Today, educators across the globe understand and acknowledge the importance of early literacy. While research concerning early literacy and the knowledge of its impact continue to expand, the issues regarding shared reading practices addressed in Kindle’s work, published seven years ago, still remain relevant.
To read this month's Take 2, click here.
Call for Poetry, Fiction, and Visual Art Submissions
JoLLE@UGA is now accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, and visual art that relate to language and/or literacy education. Work will be chosen based on artistic merit and relevance to the field.
For the spring issue, fiction submissions (20,000 words or less) are due by Friday, February 16th, 2018; poetry (written or spoken word), and/or visual arts submissions are due by Friday, March 2, 2018, at the latest for consideration in our spring issue.
JoLLE@UGA is now accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, and visual art that relate to language and/or literacy education. Work will be chosen based on artistic merit and relevance to the field.
Poetry*
We accept poetry submissions related to language and/or literacy education of up to four (4) poems in a single word or text (.doc, .rtf, or .txt) document. Poems do not have to be on separate pages. Please single space and put your name and email address on the first page. Spoken poetry in mp3/video format may also be submitted along with the written text. We reserve the right to accept all or some of your poetry.
*For this issue, we will also begin accepting MP4 or H.264 formatted spoken word submissions. If interested, please also submit the poem/s in a single word or text (.doc, .rtf, or .txt) document.
Fiction
We accept submissions related to language and/or literacy education (20,000 words or less), in a single word or text (.doc, .rtf, or .txt) document.
Art
We accept art submissions related to language and/or literacy education of up to four (4) works of art (photos, drawings, paintings, music, videos, drama, comics, etc.) in .jpeg, .tiff, .png, .gif or other relevant format.
For more information, please consult http://jolle.coe.uga.edu/poetry-and-art/ or email jolle.art.literature@gmail.com.
Spring 2018 Call for Manuscripts
We invite you to submit a manuscript to The Journal of Language and Literacy Education’s (JoLLE) themed Spring 2018 issue. The theme of this year’s issue follows our annual conference theme: Reframing Pedagogical Practices and Language and Literacy Research: Teaching to the Future (more information below). Manuscripts are due by February 13, 2018 by 11:59 p.m. EST. That's less than two weeks away! Please refer to the JoLLE guidelines for submission, found here.
In her presidential address at the annual American Education Research Association conference, Dr. Vivian Gadsden encouraged educators and researchers to reframe pedagogical practices, seek places of optimism, and find interdisciplinary synergy to strengthen educational ideals. This invitation echoes various scholars who understand the necessity to reimagine and redefine how we research, how we teach, and how we acknowledge and sustain differences in language and literacy. For this year’s conference and themed journal edition, we aim to heed Gadsden’s call by expanding, reimagining, and reshaping the boundaries that may constrain progress. We invite scholars to generate new ideas aimed to push research to new conceptual, empirical, and philosophical heights. We invite innovators and originators to think about ways to create inventive symbiosis. We invite traditionalists and those who enjoy the classics to reinvent current practices and find the inherent synergy that can create renewed vigor for classic approaches. We invite people from all facets of education to think about the ways we can join together to propel ideas about language and literacy into the future.
If you have a manuscript that you think would be a great fit for our spring issue, please email jolle.submissions@gmail.com. For more information, please consult our submission guidelines.
About Us
Email: jolle.communicate@gmail.com
Website: jolle.coe.uga.edu
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