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Bio

Dr. Josh Thompson is an assistant professor of secondary English language arts education in the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences. His research considers relationships between rural literacies and rural sustainability, especially as they relate to rural trans and queer adolescents and rural, first-generation college students. Dr. Thompson is a former high school English teacher who taught grades 9-12 for seven years in rural and rural-serving public schools in Virginia. He also leads place-based summer and winter enrichment courses on creative writing, photography, and storytelling for middle schoolers from small towns and rural communities.

Area(s) of Expertise

Dr. Thompson’s work seeks to answer several questions:
How do rural literacies sustain rural communities?
How do rural trans and queer youth use literacy practices to mediate their schooling and community experiences?
How might orienting to rural trans and queer adolescents’ experiences transform rural literacy spaces?
How can rural study abroad be a tool for rural sustainability?
How do global educational experiences influence educators’ practices?

Courses Taught
ECI 430 Methods and Materials for Teaching Language Arts in the Middle Grades
ECI 445 New Literacies, Emerging Technologies, and Electronic Portfolios

Publications

• Agents of Affirmation , Rural Education and Queer Identities (2025)
• Recovery as Relational Care: Integrating Policy, Education, and Community Resilience in Rural Appalachia , The Rural Educator (2025)
• Reflections on chilling effects: The influence of anti-queer and anti-trans policies on rural queer and trans educational research , Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue (2025)
• "It's the Commonwelath's attempt to censor . . . what we teach" , Virginia English Journal (2024)
• "It’s the Commonwealth's attempt to censor . . . what we teach”: Anti-LGBTQIA2S+ educational policy influences on rural secondary ELA teacher practices , Virginia English Journal (2024)
• Possibilities for Rural Queer Liberation: Toward a Queer Rural Place-Based Pedagogy , English Journal (2024)
• Queerly Rural, Rurally Queer , Study & Scrutiny: Research on Young Adult Literature (2024)
• Students Centered, Students Leading , The ALAN Review (2024)
• Students centered, students leading: Co-designing curriculum with young adult literature , The ALAN Review (2024)
• The dignity of choice , English Language Arts as an Emancipatory Subject (2024)

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