Fall 2025 Issue:

Centering Language(s), Voices, and Dialogue

Manuscript Submission: May 1

Poetry, Artwork, or Book Reviews: July 31

Expected Publication Date: October 2025

PDF Copy of Fall 2025 Issue Call

Editor: Stephanie Reid, PhD

(ojela@myoctela.org)

“Words are a powerful tool of expression, a means to clarify, explore, inquire, and learn as well as a way to record present moments for the benefit of future generations.”  

NCTE, 2014: NCTE Beliefs about Students’ Right to Write

“As educators, we not only have a responsibility toward our students to engage in societal dialogue; we also create space for students to develop their own sense of self, perspectives, opinions, and beliefs. It is critical that students develop the ability to effectively exercise critical thinking and respectful and productive discourse when exploring and discussing complex topics.”

NCTE, 2024: Position Statement on Supporting Teachers & Students in Discussing Complex Topics.

In both these position statements, NCTE highlights the necessity of thinking about how we make space for language and dialogue in our classrooms. The first statement connects words and language to people and communities. The language we use impacts our communication, our interpretations of the texts we encounter, and how we see the world. Our languages help us figure out the world and our place within it. This also means that when people or communities lose words and languages—or when those words and languages are taken from them—ancestral knowledge, cultural traditions, and identities are extinguished. Therefore, language is central to identity and who students are. Teachers should nurture students’ growth in classrooms where “students’ language practices are affirmed, valued, and sustained” (Baker-Bell, 2020). 

The second statement highlights how our students encounter complex issues in their lives and suggests that schools can offer brave spaces for conversations about the world. Listening to Freire (1968) helps us understand dialogue as more than a classroom activity or task. From Freire’s perspective, dialogue is a way of knowing grounded in empathy, humility, and humanity. When students and teachers engage in dialogue, they are building knowledge—but also togetherness, human connection, and community. As bell hooks suggested, teachers must ensure that students know that their own voices and languages are valuable and powerful while also teaching students “how to listen, how to hear one another” (p. 150).

In keeping with the Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts (OCTELA) Spring 2025 Conference theme, Let’s Talk: Authentic Dialogue and Language Diversity in the Classroom, we invite submissions that speak to the questions and issues outlined in our conference call:

• How do you teach students about language and languages? How do you teach students about language as a tool of expression and an aspect of political power (Pelosi & Pion, 2020)? As Amanda Gorman highlighted in her TED Talk, using our voices is a political and a way of showing who and what we stand for?

• English Language Arts classrooms are full of opportunities to get students talking to one another. How do you create space for authentic dialogue and language diversity in your classrooms in an increasingly digital, divided, and censored world?

• When working to support students in thinking critically, acting empathetically, and speaking truthfully, what freedom-oriented literacy practices, instructional strategies, learning structures, routines, and techniques do you employ in your classrooms to achieve this goal? Further, how do you honor and cultivate student voice in this endeavor?

• As we welcome multilingual learners into our classroom spaces, how do you explore the power of speaking multiple languages with your students and ensure that the significances of all languages (and not just the American, dominant version of English) are known? How do you support students in sustaining their heritage language(s) while developing their English capabilities in asset-oriented ways? What resources, ideas, beliefs, and practices have helped or inspired you to undertake this essential work?  

• Our language and linguistic practices are constantly evolving. As you prepared for the new school year, did you think about being demure and mindful? Were you sad to see brat summer end? If these terms are familiar to you, then you are aware of the influence of social media on our language and linguistic practices. Within this constantly evolving landscape, how are you navigating this wide digital world from social media culture to the use of Generative AI and how they may stifle or enhance authentic dialogue and language diversity in our classrooms?

• During this time, when educators are navigating new laws and policy changes, how are you making space for authentic dialogue with other educators? How do you work in community with others to protect our classrooms from censorship and make space for meaningful dialogue and student ideas? Additionally, how do you engage other important investors in education—for example, caregivers, school or district administrators, policymakers—in conversation?

Submissions could be research articles or pedagogical articles that share teaching ideas or curriculum designs. You could also share stories or reflections from your teaching life. As dialogue is centered in this call, you might also consider sharing your own dialogues in printed form. All submissions should be no longer than 4000 words (excluding citations).

We welcome works from writers representing all levels of English Language Arts education (PK-College) in Ohio and beyond. Preservice teachers, in-service teachers, teacher educators, and other investors in English education are all encouraged to send in their submissions for consideration. In aligning the call with the OCTELA Annual Conference, we also hope that presenters will share their work in manuscript form and that attendees might share how they took up some of the ideas gleaned during the conference.     

In addition to manuscripts that meet the theme of the Fall 2025 OJELA publication, we also welcome general interest manuscripts that speak to English Language Arts topics or issues relevant to the English Language Arts interests of our audience. We also welcome original poetry, artwork, and book reviews. Please contact Dr. Stephanie Reid, the OJELA editor, with any questions about the submission or publishing process. She can be reached at: ojela@myoctela.org. 

Please see the Submit Manuscripts to OJELA webpage for further details regarding submitting your work for consideration of publication in OJELA.