Latrise P. Johnson, ELATE Chair

Welcome from ELATE

“It is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.”

—Literal translation of Sankofa, Adkinkra symbol of the Akan tribe of Ghana

In September 2021, I attended Morris Brown College’s Homecoming in Atlanta, Georgia. I graduated from the HBCU just over 20 years before and returned to the “yard” to celebrate what has been an institutional tradition and intergenerational celebration for decades. During Homecoming, we return to our “dear ol’ Morris Brown” to remember—our pasts, our people, and our purpose. For me, homecoming marks an important time of reflection and renewal. Like the mythical Sankofa bird, I look back toward the place where I began my quest to know and where I learned critical examination and patient and intelligent investigation. There were also lots of dancing, good food, and fun times with my MBC family! NCTE is also a space I look toward for renewal. It has been my professional learning home since 2007, and I am excited to chair this year’s ELATE Summer Conference alongside NCTE’s first Homecoming. We are presented with the opportunity to return to in-person gatherings and celebrate togetherness in ways that we have been unable to in a while. As we converge on the yard (Louisville, KY), it is my hope that we will engage in critical dialogue, participate in collective thinking, and feel at home. “Home calls us to consider the people, places, foods, languages, artifacts, and customs that remind us of the whens and wheres we feel safe, affirmed, fed, and full” (ELATE CFP, 2022). This year’s theme, “ELA Teaching and Learning as Homeplace,” invites us all to think with home in order to consider the ways that texts, practices, curriculum, identities, and experiences, with/ in the English language arts might move us toward happiness, wholeness, and freedom for all. It requires us to go back to fetch what may be at risk of being left behind—to re-call to the center—the purpose of our work and working together so that we may “heal our scars; restore practices that promote racial, social, and personal wellness; and commune for the sake of knowledge exchange, unity, and love” (ELATE CFP, 2022). Thank you to the ELATE Summer Conference Planning Committee, the ELATE Executive Committee, and NCTE staff for your role in shaping the Conference. To the literacy scholars who proposed dynamic and developing research, the ELATE program is a result of your thoughtful response to the call home. Latrise P. Johnson ELATE Chair