EIE Blog

English in Education: Call for Papers

Non-fiction in the English (Language Arts) Classroom

Edited by Rachel Roberts, Victoria Elliott, and Oli Belas

We invite contributions to a special issue of EIE on Non-fiction in the English (Language Arts) Classroom.  We use this term to include classrooms at all phases of education in all countries, and to include early years as well as secondary and high school students and those in higher education, including pre-service student teachers. 

This special issue will address the possibilities of non-fiction in such classrooms, in reading and in writing. In recent years non-fiction has been relegated to a vehicle for feature spotting, or to context for literature, or to the subject of a variety of acronyms. We welcome pieces which celebrate the riches of non-fiction texts in our classrooms, and suggest possible futures.

We invite research articles (c. 4000-6000 words) and shorter reflective and/or creative pieces on any aspect of non-fiction in English teaching (up to 2000 words). 

This list of possible topics is merely indicative: we welcome the unexpected.

1. Media teaching and critical literacy in the age of ‘fake news’
2. 19^th century non-fiction
3. Non-fiction by minoritized authors
4. Learning to write non-fiction
5. Liminalities: literary non-fiction
6. Rhetoric 
7. Non-fiction in relation to oracy 
8. Reading for pleasure and non-fiction
9. Mentor texts 
10. Eco-criticism, nature writing and the climate crisis
11. The value of non-fiction texts in ELA
12. Using non-fiction to support the teaching of literature (or vice versa?)
13. English teachers writing non-fiction
14. Autobiographical writing by students
15. The use of reflective writing in initial teacher development (including shorter pieces (1500) exemplifying this)
16. Critical creative writing – the reflective commentary – what makes the creative writing PhD?

Please prepare your submission in line with the journal’s guidelines for authors, available here: http://bit.ly/EIE-author-guide. Submissions should be made via our ScholarOne site, https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/eie, by 1 June 2025. Please select the correct ‘Special Issue’ as the Manuscript Type. To discuss a possible contribution, please email:

r.l.roberts@reading.ac.uk; velda.elliott@education.ox.ac.uk; oliver.belas@beds.ac.uk

 John Hodgson, Editor

English in Education