Greetings Social Responsibility Interest Section!

We are Riah Werner and Anastasia Khawaja, the editors of the SRIS newsletter, TESOLers for Social Responsibility. We were thrilled with the submissions for our December issue and are excited to announce that the theme for our pre-convention March issue is Social Responsibility in the Current Political Climate. This corresponds with the academic panel “ELT and Social Justice within the Current Political Milieu,” which SRIS will host at the 2018 TESOL Convention in Chicago, IL. By using the same theme for our pre-convention issue, we hope to open up the dialogue and include all SRIS members in the conversation about this important and timely topic, regardless of whether or not you can attend the convention. As we all know, teaching English is not a value-neutral proposition and English teachers can find themselves at the center of the tensions brewing in the current political climate. For this issue, we’re looking for articles reflecting on the ways you handle these tensions in your work. What political discourses affect your classroom? How do the political, racial and colonial foundations underlying our field influence your approach to teaching? What can we do to support our students, their communities and each other as we navigate these trying times? As always, we would love to share a wide range of voices and perspectives on these issues and particularly encourage international submissions.

We are looking for

• Feature articles: Share your presentations, research projects, or classroom practices.

• Lesson descriptions: Describe a lesson plan you’ve created about a social justice topic so that other teachers can use it with their students as well!

• Anecdotes and stories: Do you have a story or personal reflection on incorporating social issues into your classes? If so, we’d love to hear it!

• Lists of useful resources: Share resources that you use in your work, along with an explanation of how you use them or why you find them helpful.

• Reports and reviews: Write about a book or an article that has inspired you as a teacher or researcher.

• Interviews: Is there a member of the TESOL community you would like to interview? Send the interview our way!

• Calls to action: We welcome overviews of pressing issues around the world, and suggestions on how TESOLers can get involved.

• Responses to articles published in the newsletter: We welcome submissions in dialogue with articles we have already published. Continue the conversations started in this issue!

Your submission can be between 500 to 1,750 words. Please keep this word count in mind as you draft your piece. It includes the title, byline, teaser and references, so the actual body of the article should be less than the limit of 1,750 words. If you have an idea but need some guidance on how to develop it more fully, please email us at ajkhawaja@usf.edu or riah.werner@gmail.com, and we will brainstorm together!

For this pre-convention newsletter, we are also looking to highlight convention sessions by SRIS members. If you are giving a presentation at the convention and would like to be featured in our round-up, please send us your name, the title of your session, the time and room number, and 2-3 sentences about why SRIS members should attend.

Please send your articles to Riah Werner at riah.werner@gmail.com with the subject line "SRIS Newsletter Submission.”

The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2018.

General Submission Quick Guide

Articles should

• have the title in ALL CAPS;

• list a byline (author’s name with hyperlinked email, affiliation, city, country, and an author photo);

• include a 2- to 3-sentence teaser;

• be no longer than 1,750 words (including bylines, teasers, main text, tables, references and author bios);

• include a 2- to 3-sentence author biography at the end of the article;

• contain no more than 5 references;

• follow the style guidelines in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition (APA style); and

• be formatted in .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .txt.

Include an author photo

• This should be a head and shoulder shot.

• It must be a jpg, submitted as a separate file, not embedded in the same document as the article.

• Dimensions are 120 pixels (width) by 160 pixels (height).

• The photo must be clear, clean, professional, and appropriate to the article.

The SRIS newsletter is a great venue to share your innovative work and ideas with our community. We look forward to receiving your submissions soon!

Kind Regards,

Riah and Anastasia