Cultivating Literacies of Love: A Portrait of Trauma and Healing in an English Classroom

In recent years, scholars have argued that there is a need to grow trauma-informed and healing-centered practices in the teaching of literacy. To answer this call, I draw on interdisciplinary scholarship that names loving relationships as integral to the healing process. In this article, I center love as a trauma-informed and healing-centered practice and explore how English language arts/literacy curriculum might facilitate loving relationships. Specifically, this study utilizes a single portrait to understand how one student reflected on her high school journey to loving self, peers, community, and the world, as well as the role that literacy curriculum played in illuminating and fostering those loving relationships. Ultimately, I offer literacies of love as a framework that allows us to both center and foster the type of love that we know is necessary for well-being.