Colleagues, SIGNAL Journal, the peer-reviewed (refereed) journal of the International Reading Association’s Special Interest Group—Network on Adolescent Literature, is currently seeking manuscript submissions for its upcoming issues, and we encourage you to consider submitting your work. We publish articles, essays, and reviews about varying aspects of young adult literature (YAL), as well as interviews with YAL authors. Please review the below calls for manuscripts, as well as the submission guidelines, and let us know if you have any questions. In addition, please share these calls with colleagues, graduate students, current teachers, media specialists, and anyone interested in young adult literature. Thank you for your consideration and support!
Best regards, Jennifer Dail and Katie Mason, Co-editors
Fall 2012/Winter 2013 Issue Deadline: Sept. 1, 2012 Theme: In Defense of Young Adult Texts: Common Core State Standards and the Demand for Increased K-12 Text Complexity At the writing of this call for manuscripts, forty-two states have adopted the Common Core State Standards. In addition to promoting shared responsibility across content areas for students’ literacy development, the Standards also emphasize an increased level of K-12 text complexity, arguing that “… over the last half century, K-12 texts have actually declined in sophistication, and relatively little attention has been paid to students’ ability to read complex texts independently.”[1][1] In what ways do young adult (YA) texts—both fiction and non-fiction—meet the need for more demanding texts across the curriculum? How do they challenge readers with multiple levels of meaning, sophisticated structures and graphics, language conventions, and cultural/literary knowledge demands? In what ways have you successfully argued the merit and complexity of the YA texts you teach, and what strategies do you employ for helping students read and comprehend these texts independently? How can we demonstrate that YA texts do, in fact, challenge readers and prepare them to read increasingly sophisticated texts with greater independence?
Spring/Summer 2013 Issue Deadline: Feb. 1, 2013 Theme: Exploring Differences: Helping Students Read from Multiple Perspectives In Critical Encounters in High School English, Deborah Appleman (2000) makes a case for including critical lenses in helping students respond to texts in high school English classes because “multiple ways of seeing have become vital skills in our increasingly diverse classrooms as we explore the differences between and among us, what separates us and what binds us together” (3). You may or may not deliberately integrate critical theory into your literature studies with students, but likely you engage them in responding critically to young adult literature through various strategies and techniques. What do you do to help your students use young adult texts to “explore the differences between and among us, what separates us and what binds us together”? What strategies have proved successful with your own students? We want to hear about the ways in which you critically engage students with young adult texts and push them to question the world around them and to view it through multiple lenses.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS Manuscripts, which may be 4-15 pages in length, should be double-spaced and follow APA documentation style. NOTE: Please italicize book titles, but not series titles. Series titles should be capitalized but not italicized or placed in quotation marks. Please also submit manuscripts as Word documents, attaching tables, charts, and photos (.jpg or .gif) in a separate file. We do not accept simultaneous submissions. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to [email protected].
Please include a short biographical sketch, including the name of your school and position. The editors reserve the right to modify manuscripts to fit length and language considerations. SIGNAL Journal requires that articles have not been published elsewhere.
REVIEW PROCESS Each manuscript will receive a blind review by at least two members of the review board, unless the content or length makes it inappropriate for the journal. The review board will make a decision within four to six weeks of receiving manuscripts. Any revisions of manuscripts submitted for further review will also receive a blind review by at least two members of the review board. The review board will make a decision within four to six weeks of receiving the revised manuscript.
If you have questions or if you’re interested in being added to SIGNAL’s e-mail list, please e-mail co-editors Jennifer Dail and Katherine Mason at [email protected]. In addition, visit SIGNAL’s website at http://www.kennesaw.edu/english/education/signal/Home.htm for membership information.
General Interest (May submit at any time) We publish articles of general interest when space is available. Please submit articles, essays, and reviews about varying aspects of young adult literature in the classroom. Ideas for using young adult literature in classroom, ways to get students interested in reading, interviews with young adult authors, critical analyses of several works by one author, thematic comparisons of books by different authors, and topical (annotated) bibliographies are the types of articles SIGNAL Journal publishes.
