Editors’ Overview and Insights

Overview & Insights

FROM THE EDITORS

One day there'll be no more anger left in our eyes One day the color of our skin won't cause a divide One day we'll be family, standing hand in hand And we will see the promised land, we will see the promised land (One Day by Cochran & Co., 2021)

Although we did not issue a call for a themed issue for Spring 2021, we became aware, as we reviewed the submitted manuscripts, that a mini-theme was developing, specifically a social justice theme. Reading through the manuscripts and working with the authors to finalize them, we also became aware of a heightened political climate related to this topic, not just nationally but in our own state as well. We felt it incumbent upon ourselves to think through and deliberately discuss our position, not just as co-editors of this journal, but as three white women educators. As Maribeth pointed out in our discussion, realization may be the most operative and appropriate word to apply to our thinking.

We must begin with the realization that we, as white women, initially look at everything through the lens of who we are. We must also realize that failing to look through the lenses of others not only limits our understanding of the world around us but can actually be hurtful to others who deserve our fair consideration. The first feature article in this issue deals directly with the issue of determining who we are and how we perceive others. Dr. Lara Searcy and her colleagues Brogan Spears and Kyle Foster share with us how writing our own social justice narrative can put us in a position to understand ourselves better in relation to others who are different from us.

Realization also involves not listening to the clamor and turmoil around us but investigating all things honestly and carefully to come to opinions and decisions that are helpful and productive in supporting all of our students. We realize we cannot shy away from issues of equity and social justice in the classroom, but we can seek to address them from a reasonable and yes, research-based, position, understanding that there is never only one side to any issue. In this issue, Mollie Kasper’s review of Cornelius Minor’s We Got This. Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be addresses this very issue. The book itself is an encouragement to stand up for what we know is best for students against those impacting education with other goals in mind, and you will enjoy the connections Mollie makes to it.

Our realization must extend to the fact that the issue of social justice is particularly important in our role as literacy educators. In a recent article in Voices from the Middle, Carol Kelly (2020) discussed how she goes about teaching her white students about race and what that means for them. She clearly makes the point with her students that “the history of racism is a white issue,” but she is able to do so using literature and discussion in a way that does not engender shame or blame. She ends her article with this:

We can’t make middle school students feel burdened or shamed by the past, but we can give them a sense of responsibility and a belief in their own agency to be guardians against allowing the problems from the past to reemerge, or even to work for greater equity and justice in the future. (Kelly, 2020, p. 33)

With that admonition in mind, you will want to read Shelley Martin-Young’s article on the Tulsa Race Massacre, where she describes her shock

at learning about the event for the first time during her graduate studies. Much like Carol, Shelley is committed to raising awareness of all of us in an effort to prevent such a horrendous event from ever occurring again. The article is replete with resources teachers can use to make sure their students are not ignorant of the past.

In our discussion, Maribeth shared a reflection on realization that one of her students, Cheyanne Bolding, wrote this spring: “Realization...That love deepens and deciphers everything. In our room - Love conquers all.” As you explore the articles we have highlighted above, may that realization be yours as well.

Two other feature articles in this issue address writing and speaking. Leslie Haas and Jill Tussey share their take on how fan fiction can support writing at the earliest grade levels through high school and then provide outlines for two lesson plans at first/second and third/fourth grade levels. Finally, Keith Polette offers chapter and verse on what it really means to teach students how to read with expression that leads to meaning-making; he offers practical suggestions as to how to make that happen.

Our Teacher-to-Teacher article by Shuling Yang and colleagues deals with a technique they have developed for teaching the alphabetic principle. In addition, most of our usual columns are here. Dr. Sue Parsons offers reviews of both children’s picture books and young adult books. You’ll find that many of her recommendations at both levels are for multicultural books and resonate with a social justice framework in the classroom. Shelley Martin-Young is back with the second installment on digital teaching. Dr. Linda McElroy reviews a research study in which a text structure intervention was implemented with 4th and 5th graders with

positive outcomes for the intervention and implications for current teachers of those grades and others. Dr. Julie Collins is taking a hiatus for this issue, but she will be back in the fall issue to update us in the Policy and Advocacy column.