Language Arts

. . . having spent consequential years in Philadelphia while she earned her PhD at UPenn, she continues to feel love and affinity for the city, its Blackness, and its distinct culture. Johnson’s community-engaged scholarship lies at the nexus of sociocultural literacy studies, critical race scholarship, and critical pedagogies for and with young children. Published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including Reading Research Quarterly, Urban Education, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, and the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, her research investigates African American children’s literacy practices, racial awareness, and sociopolitical knowledge as well as the nature and impact of centering Black intellectual traditions in early education. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development. Since becoming a 2018–2020 Cultivating New Voices among Scholars of Color (CNV) Fellow, Johnson has considered NCTE her professional home. Having received the 2022 Language Arts Distinguished Article Award, she is elated to now be stewarding the journal’s future for the next five years with dynamic teammates. A wife and mother of two, she enjoys traveling to new places with her family, competitively playing bingo at local restaurants, and learning (extremely slowly!) how to play tennis.

. . . a place she knows from the inside, where her students shaped her into the teacher, the scholar, and the creator she is today. Her scholarship centers Black Language, linguistic justice, and pro-Black pedagogy. Lately, that work lives inside Black canonical texts, where she conducts textual and discoursal analyses of how Black Language moves, breathes, and signifies. From Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls to every Jason Reynolds joint to Issa Rae’s Insecure, she is in the work, close-reading Blackness on the page and on the screen. She is an assistant professor of secondary education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she serves as coordinator of the secondary ELA program and the pedagogical studies concentration of the Educational Studies in Diverse Populations (ESDP) PhD Program. NCTE has been her professional home since 2018 when she was selected as a Cultivating New Voices Among Scholars of Color (CNV) Fellow, a community that continues to shape how she thinks about mentorship and the field. She is especially proud of coming in hot on the new Language Arts editorial team! She enjoys taking routine trips to MKE like its “up the street” and acquiring Español via conversations con her language tutor. With her husband, Eli, she enjoys trading comedic punchlines (mostly bloopers on his part) and energizing ideas about how to be mo’ better humans while making the world more just. Lyle (pronounced towel with an L), their goldendoodle, is somewhere nearby, patiently impatient for a treat.

Her scholarship, teaching, and service centers culturally sustaining, humanizing pedagogies in elementary schools, with particular attention to generative collaborations with highly effective teachers and school leaders who serve children who have been historically marginalized in society. She currently serves as the Spangler Distinguished Professor of Early Child Literacy at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. NCTE has been her professional home since 2010, and she was a member of the inaugural cohort of NCTE’s Professional Dyads and Culturally Relevant Teaching (PDCRT) (2012­–2015), which has helped create a network of research­–practice partnerships focused on enacting culturally relevant literacy teaching in schools across the country. She continues to support the work of the Professional Dyads and Culturally Relevant Teaching as the 2025­–2027 cohort co-director with Roderick Peele. She is particularly proud of her collaborative classroom-based research, funded by the Spencer Foundation and the US Department of Education, which has resulted in several regional and national awards, four books, and 40 peer-reviewed publications as well as the development of the Cultural Sustenance View of Reading, a complex, cultural model of reading. She is thrilled to coalesce her learnings about collaboration, editing, and classroom partnerships with this Language Arts editorial team! Outside of work, she enjoys playing her father’s Martin guitar in her band Brokedown Alice and homesteading with her family on their small farm where they keep bees, raise chickens, and love on their Great Pyrenees Xena, who fiercely protects their garden from a nearby herd of deer.

. . . She is a Latina, mother, sister, and daughter, and centers her values on those roles, which she holds dear. Her scholarship centers literacy, bilingual education, and culturally responsive teaching, with particular attention to equity, student voice, multilingual learners, and social justice in education.

Alicia is a bilingual/dual language classroom teacher at Northern Parkway Elementary School in the Uniondale School District, where she has served students in grades K–5 for the past eighteen years. In addition to her classroom role, she has served as a grade-level leader, PLC facilitator, district Equity Officer representative, newcomer ambassador, and teacher mentor. Her work focuses on creating inclusive learning environments that honor students’ linguistic and cultural assets while advancing literacy achievement for all learners.

She holds New York State certifications in Childhood Education (grades 1–6), Bilingual Education, School Building Leadership, and School District Administration. She has completed advanced graduate study in elementary education, bilingual education, and educational leadership.

NCTE has been Alicia’s professional home since 2013, providing a community where she has grown as an educator, researcher, presenter, author, and leader. She has previously served as a Trustee of the NCTE Research Foundation as well as co-director of the Professional Dyads and Culturally Relevant Teaching Cohort. NCTE has connected her with educators committed to literacy, equity, and justice-centered teaching and learning.

Alicia is especially proud of receiving the 2018 NCTE Early Childhood Literacy Educator of the Year Award. She is the co-author of No More Culturally Irrelevant Teaching (2018) and Culturally Sustaining Language and Literacy Practices for Pre-K–3 Classrooms (2022). Her scholarship has also been published in The Reading Teacher.

Outside of work, Alicia enjoys spending time with her children, reading, traveling, and staying active through kickboxing. She believes deeply in the power of relationships, advocacy, and education to create meaningful opportunities for young people and their families.

He is a dedicated husband and father of two young children, ages 2 and 5, and deeply values the importance of family, community, and cultural identity.

For the past 15 years, Mr. Peele has served as an elementary educator and currently teaches at Northern Parkway Elementary School in Uniondale, New York. He holds New York State Professional Teaching Certificates in Childhood Education (grades 1–6) and Students with Disabilities (grades 1–6) as well as a New York State School Building Leader Initial Certificate.

Mr. Peele is the co-author of Culturally Sustaining Language and Literacy Practices for Pre-K–3 Classrooms (2022) and has been published in Reading Research Quarterly through the International Literacy Association. In 2022, he was honored as the Social Justice Educator of the Year by the National Council of Teachers of English’s Early Childhood Education Assembly (ECEA). He previously served on the Executive Board of the ECEA and is currently a co-director of the Professional Dyads and Culturally Relevant Teaching (PDCRT) initiative.

Grounded in the values, interests, and principles (VIPs) shaped by his racial and ethnic background, as well as his lived experiences, Mr. Peele’s work reflects a deep commitment to culturally relevant, culturally sustaining, and culturally responsive pedagogy.

Mr. Peele is committed to utilizing intellect as a tool for critical disruption within the field of education, striving each day toward a more equitable, empowering, and justice-driven future for all learners.

Serving as a member of the Language Arts Journal editorial team represents an exciting opportunity to collaborate with scholars, educators, and thought leaders committed to transforming and advancing the journal’s impact for years to come.

. . . the elegant, eternal noble king who summons collective genius on demand. Facts!

Born in Queens, New York, and raised on “Strong Island” in Uniondale, New York, he traces his roots to southeastern Virginia, where his ancestors sowed the family’s lot into the soil after surviving the Middle Passage. It is from those ancestral seeds that he developed his foundational teaching philosophy. Deeply rooted in cultural sustenance and land-based learning, his pedagogy operates on the enduring belief that “the world around you is your teacher.” Much like how Gang Starr and Inspectah Deck signify on their collaboration, “Above the Clouds,” Sumner aims for his students to perseverate above the clouds in the realm of imagination—culturally sustaining his golden rose to vesper brown young art scholars of many nations by seamlessly integrating visual arts of foundational literacy tools. For over thirty years, he has empowered diverse student populations, particularly children from Brown-skinned cultures, to explore their ancestries, ground themselves in community identity, and build positive social connections through creative expression.

An alumnus of Morehouse College with advanced degrees from Hofstra University and The College of New Rochelle, he serves as an elementary art teacher at Northern Parkway School and a Studio in Art instructor for the Uniondale High School Twilight Alternative program.

Beyond the classroom, Sumner is an active researcher, curator, and visual artist dedicated to celebrating Black and Brown genius. He has co-authored research published in Reading Research Quarterly, designed the cover art for the educational text Culturally Sustaining Language and Literacy Practices for Pre-K–3 Classrooms, and presented on decolonizing literacy practices at national conferences, including AERA and NCTE. NCTE has been his professional home since 2022; that same year he received the NCTE ECEA Vivian Vasquez Teacher Scholarship. In 2023, he was awarded the NCTE ECEA Mariana Souto-Manning Teacher Scholarship.

Erik’s commitment to cultural sustenance extends to international curriculum initiatives inspired by his research in El Salvador as well as his work co-curating acclaimed exhibitions at Hofstra University’s Emily Lowe Gallery featuring the photography of Gordon Parks and Jamel Shabazz. He is especially proud of introducing the numerous names, achievements, and cultures of Black and Brown visual artists to generations of young Black, Rose, and Brown intellectuals (ages 3–11) who have shared space with him in his classroom.

Outside of his professional endeavors, Sumner enjoys losing himself in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, firmly believing that his art and literacy superpowers will always be needed to protect his family and community. As of 2026, he is beyond grateful to be part of this next iteration of the Language Arts editorial team. A-YO, LA SQUAD! Here’s to knowledge, understanding, wisdom, freedom, and creating Above the Clouds.