Breaking News!
From Primer to Beacon
For over fifty years the Massachusetts Reading Association has published a practitioner publication called MRA Today and a peer-reviewed journal called The MRA Primer. At the 2024 conference opening keynote, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad shared the racist history of the first student text, The Primer. This caused us to pause on continuing to use the title of Primer as our cherished journal. Immediate past president, Pattie Kelley proposed to the board to change the name to a more humanizing, inclusive, and forward-thinking title. In hopes of interrupting historic oppression in education, research, and literacy and moving towards cultivating the pursuits of identity, intellectualism, criticality, and joy the board voted on a new name!
Announcing Our New Name!
At the Massachusetts Reading Association, we are proud of our commitment to literacy and to our members who are literacy educators, college and university faculty, and authors across the state and beyond. We are especially proud of our reputation for bringing you high-quality literacy publications for over five decades.
Last spring, the MRA Board decided that it was time to update our peer-reviewed journal with a new name. With that, we launched a contest to rename The MRA Primer. Before we share the new name for our journal, we’d like to thank all of the MRA members who participated in this effort. We were thrilled to receive 24 submissions to the contest. Each suggested title was interesting and resonated with our commitment to literacy.
To select a name from the dozens of wonderful ideas, we first reviewed the suggestions to identify ideas in common. Several of you suggested variations on the theme of beacons and light. We think this theme accurately reflects our aim for the journal - to contribute to the field of literacy by shining a light on emerging research. Another common suggestion was variations on the title Journal of Literacy Research. Working with the MRA Board, we considered these ideas as well as the many other exciting suggestions.
It is our tremendous pleasure to announce the new name for the Massachusetts Reading Association’s annual, peer-reviewed journal: The MRA Beacon: Journal of Literacy Learning and Research. This title represents a synthesis of the suggested titles, and so we’d like to acknowledge all who contributed: Lauren Wolk, Brenda Webster, Dr. Beth Nolan Conners, Dr. Cami Condi, Rebecca Ward, Dr. Lori Digisi, and two contributors who would like to remain anonymous. Please note that contributor Jodi Walters suggested the name MRA Today, which we recently adopted for our spring practitioner-based journal. We were so pleased to confirm that this name change resonated with our readers. Finally, we’d like to thank Catherine Salvini, Dr. Mary Ann Cappiello, Christine Murphy, Jennifer Roberts Keddy, Bev Leute Bruce, Hollie Costa, Janeen Cox, Melissa Barton, and all who participated. We look forward to the maiden publication of the MRA Beacon: Journal of Literacy Learning and Research in December 2024.
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