WOW Stories: Connections from the Classroom is the refereed journal of the Worlds of Words Center. Manuscripts are written as vignettes/classroom stories set in classrooms, libraries, or teacher education settings that describe experiences that connect readers and literature to promote intercultural understanding. The vignettes are written in a conversational voice and include student examples. They are usually 2000-2500 words. We publish 1-2 issues a year that contain individual manuscripts and 1-2 issues a year that are submitted by a specific literacy community.

WOW stories: connections from the classroom
ISSN 2577-0551

Current Call
Making Space for Literature in the Midst of Mandates – Manuscripts Due by November 1, 2024

The current overemphasis on scripted programs and phonics has put tremendous pressure on teachers and teacher educators to conform to mandates around the Science of Reading to the exclusion of any other approach to literacy. Teachers and teacher educators recognize that readers need to engage meaningfully with literature to become literate; not just able to read but willing to read and to engage critically with texts. Educators are searching for spaces to connect readers with books and issues that are significant in their lives–spaces where readers think and dialogue, not just sound out words in boring stories. We invite manuscripts where educators tell stories about the spaces they are creating and finding to continue their work with literature within classrooms, schools, in-services, and teacher education courses. This issue will be published in Spring 2025.

Individual manuscript deadlines are June 15, 2024 and January 15, 2025.

Types of SubmissionsSubmit an individual manuscript as a vignette/classroom story:
• Describe classroom or library practice (K-12) that connects children and literature in ways that promote intercultural understanding or that involves working with educators or university students around literature to build intercultural understanding.
• Take the form of a story or vignette that one educator might tell to another to share the responses of students to literature
Include student voices where appropriate through quotes of student talk, examples of student work, audio clips, or video clips.
• Include charts, graphs, student artifacts, bulleted points and/or figures wherever possible to vary the format and enhance the content of the article.
• Be between 2000-2500 words.
• These manuscripts will be sent out for review by our editorial board, with decisions made within four months.
• Browse examples of individual manuscripts included in WOW Stories.

Submit a proposal as a literacy community for an issue of the journal:
• A group of educators from a school, library, project, writing group or university course can submit a proposal to put together an issue of the journal.
• Determine a theme/topic from the community’s work together related to using multicultural or global literature with students to create intercultural understanding.
• Submit a 2-3 page proposal that describes the topic and provides a schedule for developing the vignettes along with the names of the authors who will contribute and the name of the contact person.
• Issue begins with a short introduction of the focus for the issue and introduces the literacy community.
• Issue contains 5 or more vignettes around the theme.
• Browse examples of community-based issues of WOW Stories.

Issue proposals are accepted at any time.

Submit your manuscript now using our online form.

Guidelines and ConsiderationsFor specific questions or inquiries about WOW Stories, contact the editors:
Yoo Kyung Sung at yookyung@unm.edu
Julia Lopez-Robertson at lopezrob@mailbox.sc.edu

Do not submit your manuscript to WOW Stories: Connections from the Classroom if it is under consideration for a different journal or publication. Your manuscript must represent original work and cannot have been published previously.

Manuscripts sent to the Editorial Review Board will undergo blind review. To facilitate this process, names of the authors should not appear in the body of the manuscript or in any headings or citations. The title page with author contact information should be emailed in a separate file from the body of the manuscript. If there is more than one author, the title page should indicate who the main contact person is.

The review process will take up to two months.

Abstract
Please provide an abstract in 3rd person of about 50 words. Your abstract will serve as a general introduction to the topic and as a brief summary of your vignette. Do not include references or abbreviations in your abstract.

Citations and References
Manuscripts should be in APA style. Please check your references to make sure they are formatted correctly.

When citing a source within a sentence use present tense. For example:
“Rosenblatt (1978) writes that transactional theory….”
“According to Short (1997), children’s literature is….”

Translations
While the language of WOW Stories: Connections from the Classroom is English, we encourage authors to include student voices in the language used during the learning engagement. However, please provide translations whenever possible.

In written dialogue the translation should go in brackets immediately after the home language.

• Yo voy en el bús a que mi nana. [I take the bus to my grandmother’s.]
• En mi casa todos ayudan, porque así es. Dice mi pa’ que todos tienen que hacer algo, no pueden hacer nada. [At my house everyone helps, because that’s how it is. My dad says that everyone has to do something, they can’t do nothing.]

Figures, Tables, Images, and other Media
If you are including student voices in a language other than English through a video, audio file or podcast, please provide subtitles or an English translation. If this is not possible, integrate an English-language summary into the manuscript so that the reader understands why the video or audio was included in the manuscript.

We encourage the use of figures, tables, images, and multimedia that enhance the content of the article and take advantage of the journal’s electronic format. While your manuscript is undergoing review, these should be integrated into the manuscript and may be lower quality for quick downloading by reviewers.

Note: WOW Stories formats captions by placing them below images, including tables.

If your manuscript is accepted for publication, you are responsible for getting it publication-ready:

• Provide web-quality images and media. Images that are not web-quality will not be published.

• • Move each figure or table to a separate file. The text of the manuscript along with each figure, table, or other image should be emailed in separate files. Each file should be labeled by Author’s last name Figure/Table Number. For example:

Schall figure 1
Gonzalez table 3

• All images should be titled and an indication must be made where to insert them into the manuscript to connect them to the text. This can be basic, or more detailed. For example:

[Insert Schall Figure 1: Sabrina’s Response Journal]

[Insert Schall Figure 1: Sabrina’s response journal indicates family reading time was more successful in helping her make connections]

• Images should not be sent as Word documents. Graphics should be either in GIF or JPEG format. All tables should be formatted using the Table tool (versus using tabs).

• If your image was generated in Word (such as a table or chart), it can be saved as a PDF by going to print it but using the PDF option instead. If it is an image placed in Word, then the image needs to be right clicked on and saved as a JPEG.

Photographs
We prefer first generation images. The resolution needs to be at least 640 x 480 but 800 x 600 is preferred. We accept the following formats:

• JPEG (use only the maximum quality compression setting)
• TIFF
• BMP
• GIF

Video
A video file submitted for consideration for publication should be in complete and final format and at as high a resolution as possible. Any editing of the video will be the responsibility of the author. Video files should be submitted in one of the following formats:

• MP4
• QuickTime
• WMV
• MPEG
• RealMedia

For video files over 8MB, authors may be asked to submit a CD or jump drive rather than sending it electronically.

Audio
An audio file submitted for consideration for publication should be in complete and final format. Any editing of the audio file will be the responsibility of the author.

We accept files in MP3 or iTunes format.

Consent Forms
We require consent-to-publish forms from each author.

Additionally, if you are quoting student work or student talk in your manuscript, YOU MUST HAVE INFORMED CONSENT from the student and/or parents. We will not publish a manuscript unless we have proof of consent. To show informed consent you may either:

• Use the WOW Stories form and have each student and/or parent complete and sign the forms.
• Copy the informed consent forms that you used when you did the research or classroom engagement and send those forms to the editor. If you choose this option, be aware that your students will no longer be anonymous since the editor will have access to their real names.
• Write a blanket letter of consent stating that you have those forms in hand but are not sharing them to maintain the privacy of the students. If this is the case, you need to provide a blank copy of your permission form with your letter. This must be the sole purpose of your letter—don’t include other issues regarding your article in the content of the letter. Mail the blanket letter of consent and the blank copy of your permission form to the editor.

Use the WOW Stories form and have each student and/or parent complete and sign the forms.

Publication Considerations
If your manuscript is accepted for publication, the authors must submit consent-to-publish forms, professional affiliation forms, and student consent forms along with the manuscript and related files in the electronic format as required. If paperwork or electronic files are not completed the manuscript will not be published.

ORCID
If you have an ORCID, please provide it on the submission form.

WOW Stories Plagiarism StatementDefining Plagiarism
For all online content, and specifically our online journals, Worlds of Words defines plagiarism as “Submitting an item of research, written or otherwise produced work that has previously been submitted or simultaneously submitted without fair citation of the original work or authorization by the faculty member supervising the work.” This includes all previously-submitted work regardless of copyright law; this includes self-plagiarism and plagiarism of works in the public domain. At Worlds of Words, we uphold published works to a high standard of integrity.

Crediting Intellectual Property
For our journals, Worlds of Words also follows the guidelines outlined by the American Psychological Association:

Cite the work of those individuals whose ideas, theories, or research have directly impacted your work… In addition to crediting the ideas of others that you have used to build your thesis, provide documentation of all facts and figures that are not common knowledge. (American Psychological Association, 2009, p. 170)

All Journal manuscripts must adhere to these standards. All quotations and paraphrased ideas from other works must be properly cited in APA format, including quotations from the book being reviewed. In addition to blatant plagiarism, self-plagiarism (when an author uses his/her previous work without proper citation) will not be tolerated in our journals. Worlds of Words also prohibits duplicate publication in our journals; no content in WOW’s journals may have previously been published by a different institution.

Plagiarism is not tolerated because it is dishonest, demonstrates a lack of integrity, and goes against Worlds of Words’ mission: to promote cultural understanding and academic dialogue among educators. Authors who plagiarize are guilty of denying the original authors their chance to participate and be heard.

Plagiarism Checking Before Publication
All our journals are peer-reviewed prior to their publication by experts in the field’s sub-specialty who have advanced understandings of seminal and ongoing research in their area who are the first line of plagiarism detection. WOW’s journal editors are additionally tasked with studying submissions for plagiarism. If any text is found to be plagiarized and is not a quotation, an obvious coincidence, or lacks proper citation, the manuscript will be rejected.

Worlds of Words is currently researching electronic plagiarism-detection software to make our screening process more efficient and thorough, however it is on the author/submitter to do their due diligence.

When Plagiarism is Found on the Site After Publication
If plagiarism is found in a WOW journal following publication, our team will take immediate action. We will notify the editors of the journal, pull the plagiarized piece from the website, and publish an erratum explaining what has transpired. Legal action may be taken if necessary.

WOW Accountability Statement
Worlds of Words values integrity, transparency, and honesty in our publications. We are committed to taking every possible step to prevent plagiarism.

If you see a manuscript in WOW Stories that you suspect to be an infringement of copyright (suspected plagiarism, your own uncredited work, etc.), do not hesitate to contact us at wow@arizona.edu. We will investigate any claim of copyright infringement as quickly as possible. Any material found to be a violation of copyright law or publication integrity will be immediately pulled from the website, and we will publish an erratum describing the circumstance and what steps were taken to correct it.

Our plagiarism policy above outlines WOW’s zero-tolerance attitude toward plagiarized work as well as our steps for ensuring that plagiarism does not occur in our publications. However, we acknowledge that there is always a risk of plagiarism slipping through our screening process. If this circumstance were ever to arise, we appreciate your cooperation in helping us resolve it.

Copyright and Repository Information

WOW Stories by Worlds of Words is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This journal is available to anyone to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles or use them for any other lawful purpose within our guidelines and according to stated copyright.

CC BY-NC-SA includes the following:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
SA – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

Vignettes published in WOW Stories are indexed in the Database of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and deposited in the UArizona Campus Repository. Authors retain copyright over their vignettes published in WOW Stories and can exercise all of their copyright entitlements, including re-publishing on a public or commercial repository platform at any time. We request that authors acknowledge first publication of the work in WOW Stories with a link to their original piece on wowlit.org.

Download WOW’s Consent to Publish form for WOW Stories.

Open Access Statement:• This is a blind peer-reviewed, open-access journal.
• All articles in this journal are freely available for all users to access at any time without restriction.
• The authors are not charged any fee to have their work published in this journal.
• This journal operates under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-SA. This means, “this license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.” All authors publishing with these journals accept these terms of publication.