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Editorial: The Constancy of Change
| Joanne Panas is a co-editor of English Practice. She teaches part-time English in Richmond and is also an educational consultant and writer. jpanas@richmond.sd38.bc.ca |
We've all heard the cliche that change is the only constant of life; we have also heard that we shouldn’t change purely for the sake of change—and we certainly shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think that all of these sayings might characterize this issue of English Practice—and there’s one of the changes already! But let me begin at the beginning…
At the AGM after the BCTELA conference in October, I became co-editor of Update with Krista Ediger. Together, we began to review the journal and discuss what we liked and what we thought should change. The first change was to move from three issues a year to two, in the Fall (pre-conference) and in the Spring; we anticipate that issues will often be longer as a result.
As well, we agreed that Updateis moving in a new direction, with:
- An expanded focus on grades 4 to 12
- Articles focused on intermediate grades (written by intermediate teachers)
- Articles focused on secondary grades (written by secondary teachers)
- Articles that can be adapted and applied up or down the grade spectrum
- Articles from post-secondary and/or retired teachers, applicable to grades 4 through 12
- A focus on best literacy practices (as high-lighted inthenew Curriculum Packs criteria)
- Some longer and more academic articles, which may be research-based
To that end, Leyton Schnellert (as past co-editor), Krista and I created a set of guidelines for submissions, which were presented at the November executive meeting (see our “Call & Criteria for English Practice: the Journal of BC’s Teacher of English Language Arts” in Check This Out).
Given the changes in direction of the journal, updatedid not reallyreflect the content. After much brainstorming and discussion, we selected English Practiceas our new name. It’s succinct and clearly related to the discipline of English Language Arts and our focus on research-based best literacy practices. You may also have noticed that our cover art is by a student; we would like to continue to highlight student artwork and writing in our journal, on the cover and on the pages (in Musings and Meanderings).
What, you might ask, has remained the same? Our four sections are the same; they are working well for us and seem to reflect the content our members are looking for.
