THOMAS ET AL. Editors’ Introduction 357 Research in the Teaching of English Volume 56, Number 4, May 2022 357 Jennifer Phuong Swarthmore College Editors’ Introduction Storying and Restorying as Cathartic Hope Ankhi Thakurta University of Pennsylvania Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, we have often found ourselves struggling to understand how to make meaning of the inexplicable. The contentious political response to the virus and our persistent failure to ensure educational equity are just two facets of the ekpyrosis—Greek for great confla- gration—of the present. Other crises are evident in our work around the nation and the world: the climate emergency; the persistence of gun violence, war, and genocide; the mental health crisis among young people (and people of all ages); rampant inflation exacerbated by corporate greed; a lack of affordable and safe housing. These compounding factors make the present moment extraordinarily difficult for most—especially those in many of the communities where we teach, mentor, serve, and live. Stories have always been a way that humans make sense of the world during the most difficult times. Stories transmit a sense of who we are as humans living within this biosphere. The articles in this issue feature research on the ways young people create stories to make sense of their own lives and to imagine more equi- table futures. In spite of the trauma and oppressive circumstances young people must navigate, they are also immensely creative. They read and write the self into existence, restorying narratives that erase, exclude, and mischaracterize them. If it is true, as Hannah Arendt once noted, that “storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it, that it brings about consent and reconciliation with things as they really are,” then researching the role of stories (and restories) in the teaching of English can point the way toward cathartic hope. In the first article of this issue, “‘It’s Our Job as People to Make Others Feel Valued’: Children Imagining More Caring and Just Worlds through Superhero Stories,” Francisco Luis Torres highlights the agency of children making sense of ongoing societal conditions and imagining otherwise through the lens of their own superhero comics. Through co-teaching a fifth-grade literacy unit on superheroes Amy Stornaiuolo University of Pennsylvania Naitnaphit Limlamai University of Michigan Ebony Elizabeth Thomas University of Michigan Gerald Campano University of Pennsylvania