Early in the 2023–2024 school year Mr. Medeiros and a handful of his Kaua’i High School Future Teachers of Hawai’i club members took a two-day huaka’i (trip) to Oahu. This service-learning trip was part of the learning progression for the club which is focused on student advocacy and social justice. With the help of Josh Reppun retired Hawai’i State Supreme Court Justice Mike Wilson the people at What School Could Be and other amazing educators the students began their huaka’i by gathering together to think and talk about the purpose of education/school. Ostensibly they were traveling to Oahu to learn from others but really the adults were there to learn how to keep pushing the boundaries of the idea of “school.”

This study examines how English teachers in a politically conservative state integrate principles of Critical Language Awareness into their existing curricula despite a political climate hostile to teaching about social inequity. This project stemmed from concerns expressed by preservice teachers in an English methods class about their ability to enact the critical language teaching methods they were learning because of the political context in the state. Interviews with practicing teachers reveal how teachers incorporate critical language teaching across English courses as disparate as AVID English 9 Journalism and African American Literature. The study provides examples of external pushback against race-related curriculum and the resulting fear teachers carried in their professional and personal lives. It also documents teachers’ persistence in the face of fear. Finally the study raises challenges of teaching about race and language with white students in politically conservative contexts highlighting a need to support teachers doing critical language teaching in these spaces. The findings demonstrate that even under the scrutiny of anti-CRT sentiments teachers can successfully engage critical language awareness.

This (Re)Active Praxis essay centers on the collaborative revision of two English language arts teacher education courses—one on literature and drama and the other on writing and language—in a state experiencing aggressive legislation against practices of diversity equity and inclusion that impacts teacher education preparing students to design justice-oriented education. Two objectives framed this collaborative course revision: to deliver critical teacher preparation grounded in cultural relevance and justice orientations and to design courses that integrate and demonstrate conceptual and instructional relationships between reading and writing. The authors share and reflect on their experiences and process of collaboratively revising the courses offering a heuristic derived from their decision-making to increase or improve ways education courses support preservice teachers’ opportunities to learn and teach literacy in culturally responsive justice-oriented classrooms.

This year-long ethnographic study explores how two ELA preservice teachers of color enacted pedagogies of abolitionist praxis—centering teaching and learning to and through an abolitionist praxis of identifying and dismantling surveillance criminalization and punishment—via the areas of curriculum and instruction relational work and organizing and activism. When enacting pedagogies of abolitionist praxis with specific attention to curriculum and instruction three findings were identified. First both teachers purposely and strategically designed their curriculum and instruction to explicitly teach an abolitionist praxis yet they did so via distinct approaches. Next the teachers rooted their curriculum and instruction in a radical Black Indigenous and feminist imaginary to teach about but more importantly teach against carceral practices policies and ideologies. Last both teachers facilitated youth-led action research projects that centered present and future world-building actions. This study provides implications for the education and support of preservice teachers and for K–12 teacher practice.

The work of three secondary English teachers illustrates the power and risks of centering talk as a practice in writing classrooms.

Two teacher educators explore how youth and literary professionals engage in the creation of new literary knowledge as a form of social justice.

What does it mean to offer students a “seat at the table” in our English language arts classrooms now that our seats are back in closer proximity following the COVID emergency? Lisa Alexander reminds us of crucial ways to reflect on conscious classroom choices in relation to technology as we seek to strengthen classroom interactions.

The author considers how photovoice a visual research methodology might support intersectional classroom discussions of LGBTQIA+ topics.

This article explores artificial intelligence and its academic uses and challenges when incorporated into a high school writing curriculum.

An educator considers the value of an iterative design process for enacting and sustaining a youth participatory action research program in a public high school.

In this essay the author discusses how Julius Caesar can inspire dialogue around controversial challenging topics such as the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

The authors describe an English language arts teacher’s approach to incorporating a design analysis framework to support multimodal composition for discourse communities.

This article explores Arts in Action a project that drew criticism and became a subject of controversy due to allegations of violations of state laws related to teaching certain concepts (such as critical race theory) and indoctrinating students.

Educators across the United States have found ways to resist censorship and attacks on diverse texts through an affinity space called Project LIT.

A teacher explores the concepts of scale and perspective with his students as they consider what it means to share the planet with others while imagining more hopeful and just worlds.

Two teachers reflect on leveraging learners’ agency authentic writing tasks and responsive teaching to better promote their multilingual students’ writing motivation in collaborative writing activities.

This critical curation examines representations of critical friendship across a variety of texts and media.

This article details how English language arts teaching and a schooluniversity collaboration were censored by two different policies simultaneously: the adoption of scripted curriculum and restriction around teaching about racism.

The author examines the relationship between the legacy of slavery and book banning in American schools and prisons arguing that book banning is a modern form of antiliteracy laws known as “slave codes” that were enacted during enslavement.