For information on how and where to submit to any of these calls, please visit our Information for Authors page.

Postmark deadline: July 15, 2008
Publication date: March 2009

Note: English Journal will have a new editor beginning with the September 2008 issue. Please click here for more information about submitting for this call.

Manuscripts should be sent to:
Ken Lindblom, Editor
English Journal
English_Journal@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

Guest Editors: Paula Ressler and Becca Chase, Illinois State University

As English teachers responsible for all students' learning, teaching about LGBT issues is central to our success. Educators from John Dewey to Gloria Ladson-Billings emphasize that good teachers need to get to know their students, yet we find that in most educational settings lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, genderqueer, those questioning their sexual orientations and gendered identities, and family members of LGBT people feel they must hide these aspects of themselves or face negative consequences. For those trying to balance sexual orientation and gender identity and expression with race and other marginalized identities, the struggle for voice and acceptance can be even more complicated.

How can you enrich learning and build community by helping to bring the voices of students representing all sexual orientations and gender identities and expressions into the classroom conversation? How do new and experienced English teachers address sexual orientation, gender variances, and intersecting identities? How have you helped students better understand people whose sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions differ from their own? How have you worked with texts by new and YA authors featuring LGBT themes or characters? How have you worked with canonical authors whose identities or works can be read through a "queer" lens? How do you create safe opportunities for students to research, write about, and discuss these issues? What other actions do we take outside the English classroom to affect professional development, school safety policies, responses to censorship, and legislation?

We invite manuscripts exploring these or other related questions. Paula Ressler, guest editor, is willing to discuss ideas with authors; she may be reached at pressle@ilstu.edu.

Deadline: September 15, 2008
Publication Date: May 2009

Note: English Journal will have a new editor beginning with the September 2008 issue. Please click here for more information about submitting for this call.

Manuscripts should be sent to:
Ken Lindblom, Editor
English Journal
English_Journal@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

Some believe classrooms are safe spaces in which students are sheltered from the politics, competition, and general chaos of the real world. Further, standardized exams, scripted curricula, and traditional assignments often focus students on artificial tasks that are only loosely connected with the kinds of literacy activities students will be required to do after high school.

This issue of EJ is an opportunity to share assignments you have created to help students develop the kinds of knowledge and skills they will need for the world beyond school. Some might write about service-learning projects in which students have begun a community campaign, composed informational Web sites, or published in editorial pages. Other teachers may write about how they have sent students to interview professionals in a variety of fields to explore how reading and writing are required skills. Others may write about authentic assignments that require students to write for real audiences, real purposes, and in real contexts. Still others may define “real-world skills” as the social skills that even most adults have not mastered. Some teachers have developed units on cooperation and collaboration, enhancing students' abilities to work together, to draw on each other's talents, and to engage in conflict resolution when necessary. This issue welcomes all articles on real-world assignments in English class. Please be open about shortcomings in real-world curricula; when one writes for real, the consequences are real as well, and we can learn as much from our shortcomings as from our successes.

Deadline: November 15, 2008
Publication Date: July 2009

Note: English Journal will have a new editor beginning with the September 2008 issue. Please click here for more information about submitting for this call.

Manuscripts should be sent to:
Ken Lindblom, Editor
English Journal
English_Journal@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

Do you remember what attracted you to the field of English? Was it your escapist forays into other lands through reading? Dreams of writing the next Great American Novel? Fascination with famous speakers who moved the world with their words? Deepening your appreciation of classic films? Whiling away the hours with a dog-eared comic book or pop novel? Indulging your ego with your own angst-ridden poetry? Playing your favorite songs again and again to hear and appreciate every word? Creating a famous Web site? You're lucky. Now that you teach English, you get to indulge these pleasures with your students and call it work.

Since people learn best through play, there is an argument to be made that all teaching and learning should be fun. What do you teach that you and your students find to be a great deal of fun? Please, no Jeopardy! -style test reviews or mnemonic devices for naming the parts of speech. For this issue, we seek enjoyable, creative assignments that engage students in genuinely high-level learning in any area of English language arts.

Deadline: January 15, 2009
Publication Date: September 2009

Note: English Journal will have a new editor beginning with the September 2008 issue. Please click here for more information about submitting for this call.

Manuscripts should be sent to:
Ken Lindblom, Editor
English Journal
English_Journal@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

Guest Editor: Michael LoMonico, Folger Shakespeare Library and Stony Brook University

Shakespeare education underwent a sea change in the 1980s through the work of the Folger Shakespeare Library's Teaching Shakespeare Institutes for secondary teachers. Then in 1993, the Folger's Shakespeare Set Free editions spread the performance-based approach of those institutes to teachers across the country.

May be submitted at any time.

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 foreground classroom practice and contextualize it in sound research and theory. As you know, EJ 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.