Story Setting and Writing Calls to Action
Image via Davide Restivo on http://commons.wikimedia.org While designing a short story unit for my AP English literature students this past August, I was eager to identify stories that acknowledged...
View ArticleNature Poetry and Survival Instincts: Floating with the Vampire Squid
2020 has provided unique challenges to the effort to close the “Nature Gap”: minimal time spent enjoying outdoor play and increased time spent in front of screens has led to greater nature...
View ArticleSmokey Bear Persuasion and Wildfire Prevention Messaging
Recently, my student Daphne described taking a hike last month, as the Bobcat Fire burned 50 miles away within the Angeles National Forest. As she made her way down the hiking trail, she encountered...
View ArticleAdjusting to Uncertainty: Systems Thinking with Octavia Butler
Reading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower in the year 2020 was a slightly eerie experience: so much of what Butler has presented in her fictional novel set in the 2020s is happening: uncontrolled...
View ArticleThe Braided Essay
The image of the braid is powerfully suggestive of attempts to reconcile threads that are sometimes difficult to reconcile. In this way, the braided essay can be a helpful teacher: an exercise in...
View ArticleVoice Over, Camera Shots, and Conservationist Storytelling
Watching Faith E. Briggs navigate the ruts, inclines, and down hills as she runs through three national monuments – public lands protected under the Antiquities Act – makes for a vivid and immersive...
View ArticleThe Stakes of the Story: Learning from Tommy Orange
When I was a drama student in high school, a theater teacher offered this important reminder as we choreographed stage blocking for a scene: “Every story has stakes.” These words were intended as a...
View ArticlePicture Book-Driven Inquiry: Reframing Research Investigation
“The river’s rhythm runs through my veins. Runs through my people’s veins.” My student unmutes herself in our video conference, identifying these two lines as her favorite in Carole Lindstrom’s We...
View ArticleThe Time Capsule Narrative
Image via Lucian Alexe on Unsplash.com In Sharon Olds’ poem “Ode to Dirt,” the speaker opens with an apology, explaining I thought you were only the background for the leading characters—the plants...
View ArticleThree Ways to Encourage Nature Writing
One of the most rewarding aspects of my Moving Writers beat is hearing from other educators about how they encourage students to identify when they feel they are a part of Nature and not merely apart...
View ArticleThe Craft Moves of Climate Stewards: Thinking with Xiye Bastida and Greta...
Photo by Markus Spiske via Unsplash One way to provide an entry point for students who often feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the climate crisis is to explore a text pairing that puts ideas in...
View ArticleEnvironmental Justice, Comic Book Storytelling, and Seed Work
Photo by Nicole Giampietro via Unsplash In Charlie La Greca and Rebecca Bratspies’ environmental justice comic, Mayah’s Lot, the image of the aspen seed is prominent. The titular character intends to...
View ArticleWriting a Climate Victory Garden
1945 World War II Victory Garden poster by Hubert Morley Louise Maher-Johnson’s poem, “Notes from a Climate Victory Garden,” offers a series of calls to action, as seen in the poem’s opening:...
View ArticleFostering Environmental Storytelling: Making an Eco-Zine
The question—What kind of access to environmental news stories do we have?— is one that arouses concern in my classroom. According to my high school students, unless you’re taking an AP Environmental...
View ArticleA Message in a Bottle Narrative
Photo by Scott Van Hoy on Unsplash The phrase, “a message in a bottle,” conjures an image of a weather-beaten bottle, bearing a message from an earnest sender. It came to mind as I prepared to share...
View ArticleWriting Flash Fiction: Environmental Ghost Stories
Photo by Crina Parasca on Unsplash In last month’s post, I described how writing flash stories helped my students process the contents of an informational text. As we turned to a news article about a...
View ArticlePicture Book-Driven Inquiry: Picturing Survival with Octavia Butler
I’ve been eager to shake up my classroom literature circles. Sometimes, it is easy to fall into a routine rut: assign some chapters to be read, passages to be annotated, literary techniques to be...
View ArticleWhere Dystopian Fiction Meets Water Journalism
Photo by Patrick Pahlke on Unsplash One way to help students become climate stewards is to model how reading paired climate texts enhances our ability to both problem-spot and problem-solve. In our...
View ArticleNotebook Time for a New School Year
Every teacher has their own way of preparing for a new school year. I like to try out writing activities I might share with my students and see what I notice. What possibilities exist with this...
View ArticleThe Self-Introduction in Writing
Photo by Alex Guillaume on Unsplash When students are asked to introduce themselves in writing, it can be difficult figuring out the best way to stage this encounter between self and stranger, writer...
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