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| Lewis and Clark's Journals Photo Source: amphilsoc.org |
Eco-Literacy... in Language Arts
There is a long history in Language Arts of writing about nature. No matter whether it's the ancient Greeks who wrote philosophical, mathematical, and scientific treatises on what they found in nature, last century's great natural history explorers, American, Irish, and English writers who found aesthetic inspiration in the natural world, or science fiction writers using environmental chaos as a setting for dystopian fiction, nature and writing have always been closely knit together. The only difference now is that we have codified the concept of E.L. and recognize how we can utilize such writing as a tool for teaching E.L. along with language arts.
Language arts is much more than reading and writing. It actually encompasses:
Listening: understanding spoken language
Speaking: communicating ideas through oral language
Reading: understanding written language
Writing: communicating through written language
Viewing: understanding visual images and connecting them to accompanying spoken or written words
Visually Representing: presenting information through images, either alone or along with spoken or written words
All of these are skills that allow for interdisciplinary learning and shouldn't be limited to just the language arts classroom. Conversely, the language arts classroom can still focus on teaching these skills while using resources from outside of the language arts field.
For instance, in my 5th grade class, I might ask my students to listen to a TED talk about an environmental issue or solution and then write a reflection on what they learned. In another instance, I might ask them to create a flow chart of the water cycle and then speak to the class about how humans modify that cycle. I might also have them read a basic scientific paper that includes images and explain how their reading connects to the images.
For a unit on fictional, creative writing, I might have my students listen and read to myths about the night sky along with diagrams of how the stars actually move, then write their own myth complete with pictures that they will share with the class.
For a poetry class, I could ask them to create a written or spoken poem based on an experience they had in nature or even a single picture of a natural area.
For a short story, I could ask them to write a story from a non-human perspective.
They could read the journals of a great explorer or writer, like Lewis and Clark, and then transform it into a graphic novel.
They could hold a debate about the solution to an ecological issue.
In this way, incorporating E.L. into Language Arts isn't much of a stretch.
For additional information, check these out:
Language arts is much more than reading and writing. It actually encompasses:
For instance, in my 5th grade class, I might ask my students to listen to a TED talk about an environmental issue or solution and then write a reflection on what they learned. In another instance, I might ask them to create a flow chart of the water cycle and then speak to the class about how humans modify that cycle. I might also have them read a basic scientific paper that includes images and explain how their reading connects to the images.
For a unit on fictional, creative writing, I might have my students listen and read to myths about the night sky along with diagrams of how the stars actually move, then write their own myth complete with pictures that they will share with the class.
For a poetry class, I could ask them to create a written or spoken poem based on an experience they had in nature or even a single picture of a natural area.
For a short story, I could ask them to write a story from a non-human perspective.
They could read the journals of a great explorer or writer, like Lewis and Clark, and then transform it into a graphic novel.
They could hold a debate about the solution to an ecological issue.
In this way, incorporating E.L. into Language Arts isn't much of a stretch.
For additional information, check these out:
- The Ecological Inheritance of Ancient Greece
- Scenes of Romantic Miseducation and the Challenges of Eco-Literacy
- Environmental Education by Subject- Language Arts
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