CC BY-SA 2.0 license: Unidos para Triunfar – Together We Overcome Mural jay galvinFlickr

Resistance & Belonging: Creating a Homeplace in the Classroom.

How it works: All preservice and in-service teachers and friends are invited to dialogue on the ways we build communities of support to sustain our justice-centered teaching. Our goal is to read and discuss shared texts in our own communities (i.e., in our local teacher education classrooms), and then to post about these discussions and texts. The following week, we invite you to respond to these initial posts, and to dialogue with educators in different contexts as you explore ways of building and sustaining justice-oriented teaching and learning.

Dates for the Spring 2026 dialogue:

The English Language Arts Teacher Educators Commission on Social Justice (ELATE-SJ) Spring 2026 dialogue will begin the week of March 23^rd – April 1st, 2026 (reading/posting week); and continue throughout the week of April 2^nd – April 10th, 2026 (responding week). This dialogue provides an opportunity for preservice and in-service teachers from across the United States and international contexts to engage in shared readings, post their thoughts on/analysis of those readings, and then review and respond to one another’s posts. Two articles and one video to focus our dialogue are linked below, and questions to guide the dialogue are listed below.

Pichardo, E., & Creer, S. (2024). Perspectives on Practice: Dismantling Muros Using Critical Texts and Topics. Language Arts, 102(2), 107-113.

Liu, D., Del Valle, S., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2025). Toward a Joyful Resistance: Racial Literacy and the Creation of Homeplaces in the Secondary ELA Classroom. English Journal, 114(6), 32-40.

Historical Erasure: When Curriculum Acts as the Gatekeeper of Existence | Sarah Ishmael | TEDxDuke

Overarching questions/considerations connected to the theme for the Spring 2026 dialogue:

RESISTANCE & BELONGING: CREATING A HOMEPLACE IN THE CLASSROOM

How did the texts inspire your vision for a community of joyful resistance in the classroom? How can we shatter muros in the classroom? 

What aspects of historical erasure resonated most with you from the video? How can we combat historical erasure in the classroom, and which groups would you prioritize for your local context? 

Why do you think it is important to emphasize joy as a part of resistance? How does a focus on joy change this equity work in the classroom?

To share posts and respond on the justice.education website, please click on this link.  Use the password shared by your professor to enter the dialogue space.