Sarah J. Donovan

Welcome. I’m Sarah Donovan, the founder of Ethical ELA—but I want to say this first: I am not the heart of Ethical ELA. The heart is the community of teachers, students, writers, and scholars who have built it, questioned it, and carried it forward. Ethical ELA exists because of collective imagination, collective labor, and collective care.

I have been a teacher since 2000 and am now a professor of English and teacher education. My work centers on writing, ethical literacy, trauma-informed and justice-oriented pedagogy, and the power of creative practice in classrooms. Over the years, I have published books, chapters, and research articles—almost all of them grounded in collaboration with educators and students. Ethical ELA itself emerged from this same ethic: that our best thinking happens together.

You will find that much of what lives here is free and openly available. That is intentional. Ethical ELA is built on the belief that teachers deserve access to thoughtful, humane, research-informed resources without barriers—and that hope, not compliance, should sit at the center of English classrooms.

Whether you arrived here as a longtime member of this community or by accident, I’m glad you’re here. I hope you find language, tools, and possibilities that nourish your teaching and your own writing life. And, this is just to say…. While I am encouraged to serve teachers by and through my employment as a teacher educator, my ideas are my own and not necessarily endorsed by my employer.