Submission Guidelines

 

Talking Points, a peer-reviewed journal, is published in May and October by WLU, the Whole Language Umbrella, a conference of NCTE. Talking Points helps promote literacy research and the use of whole language instruction in classrooms. It provides a forum for parents, classroom teachers, students, and researchers to reflect about literacy and learning. We invite submissions from professionals across the educational spectrum, including classroom teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and educational advocates/activists.

Manuscripts submitted should: (1) be on a topic or issue related to holistic teaching and learning; or (2) present theory and/or research that contributes to the knowledge base for holistic, democratic, and inclusive education. Manuscripts should be no more than 15 pages in length (standard margins, double spaced) and, to ensure a blind review, contain no information identifying the author except on an attached cover sheet. Please number the pages. Reference lists should follow the latest APA guidelines, and the manuscript should be consistent with NCTE’s Statement on Gender and Language.

To submit a manuscript, register as an author at our online manuscript submission system, Editorial Manager, and then follow the steps to submit your article. Manuscripts are accepted at any time.

Questions? Contact incoming editors Patricia C. Paugh and Sherry Sanden at talkingpoints@ncte.org.

May 2020: Literacy as a Social and Democratic Process
Submission deadline: October 1, 2019

Talking Points seeks manuscripts on a range of whole language teaching and learning topics. For the May 2020 issue, we particularly invite submissions detailing the use of whole language practices that prompt students’ social and democratic participation. Some examples might include classrooms where students read, write, and/or critique media, the political environment, or social issues related to topics they may be encountering, directly or indirectly, in their own lives, such as immigration, religious beliefs, regulation of weapons, racism, or climate change. Questions manuscripts might address include: How do teachers draw on children’s literature that appeals to varied perspectives on current issues in students’ worlds? How do teachers implement writing workshops where students begin to see themselves as powerful actors, writing or rewriting their worlds?  How do teachers revalue students’ funds of knowledge in ways that support learners’ literacy practices outside the classroom? We encourage manuscripts as a whole that reclaim whole language beliefs and practices as powerful pedagogies that support children’s lifelong literacy understandings and perspectives.

Classroom Voices (ongoing feature)
Submission deadline: October 1 for the May issue; March 1 for the October issue

In each issue of Talking Points, the Classroom Voices section provides space for shorter alternative pieces that highlight the richness of whole language in the classroom. We invite classroom vignettes, photo essays, book reviews, samples of students’ work, teacher interviews, or anything else that helps us situate the principles of whole language in real classroom contexts. These pieces should be no longer than 1–2 double-spaced pages of text; accompanying photos should be submitted in a standard graphics format (tiff, jpeg, etc.) in high resolution (300 DPI) and will require signed permissions from the photographer and the subjects. Student work will also require permission to be included.

Note: For all pieces, please rely on the Whole Language Beliefs (http://www2.ncte.org/groups/wlu/beliefs/) to demonstrate how your work draws on and contributes to whole language principles and teaching practices.