For the Love of Nature
Ecowriting the World
©2024
Textbook
XII,
224 Pages
Series:
Counterpoints, Volume 547
Summary
For the Love of Nature: Ecowriting the World brings together a series of essays that address the power and magic of writing about the natural world. The array of authors and locations, from Melbourne to Los Angeles to Rome, share their expertise in literacy and their passion for nature. They offer ideas and examples of ecowriting through various media and genres including videos, journals, letters, comic strips, poetry, and more. Their reflections on writing demonstrate a love of nature and concern for education that promotes social and environmental justice for students of all ages. The essays offer numerous examples for interacting with the environment. For the Love of Nature includes many entry points for ecowriting, from theoretical explanations to practical, step-by-step applications. The essays, student examples, lesson plans, and lists of resources provide everything a teacher needs to engage their students in reflecting on, participating with, and writing about the natural world.
This engaging collection posits the value of and need for instruction on ecowriting that fosters students’ relationships with the natural world and an appreciation of Indigenous/Non-Western ecological perspectives. The book includes useful essays on teaching various types and genres of ecowriting, including the use of digital media productions such as video and multimodal essays. It also includes examples of students’ essays, letters, and poems from Jeff Share’s environmental justice class that illustrate the instructional methods described in the book. Therefore, this book is a useful resource for teachers to incorporate ecowriting into their teaching to engage students in creatively portraying their experiences with the natural world for having them address the need for action about the global climate crisis.
Richard Beach, Professor Emeritus of English Education,
University of Minnesota
Drawing upon Indigenous wisdom and critical pedagogy, For the Love of Nature: Ecowriting the World is both a call to action and an important resource for teaching, learning, and enacting environmental justice. The beautiful collection of essays is a must-read for all K-12 educators interested in advancing educational and climate justice to create a more sustainable and caring world for our present and our future.
Annamarie M. Francois, Ed.D. Executive Director Center X, UCLA
This engaging collection posits the value of and need for instruction on ecowriting that fosters students’ relationships with the natural world and an appreciation of Indigenous/Non-Western ecological perspectives. The book includes useful essays on teaching various types and genres of ecowriting, including the use of digital media productions such as video and multimodal essays. It also includes examples of students’ essays, letters, and poems from Jeff Share’s environmental justice class that illustrate the instructional methods described in the book. Therefore, this book is a useful resource for teachers to incorporate ecowriting into their teaching to engage students in creatively portraying their experiences with the natural world for having them address the need for action about the global climate crisis.
Richard Beach, Professor Emeritus of English Education,
University of Minnesota
Drawing upon Indigenous wisdom and critical pedagogy, For the Love of Nature: Ecowriting the World is both a call to action and an important resource for teaching, learning, and enacting environmental justice. The beautiful collection of essays is a must-read for all K-12 educators interested in advancing educational and climate justice to create a more sustainable and caring world for our present and our future.
Annamarie M. Francois, Ed.D. Executive Director Center X, UCLA
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Epigraph
- No Más Humanos/No More Humans (Sarawi Andrango)
- Land Acknowledgment
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction (Jeff Share)
- Part I: Exploring Ecowriting
- 1. ‘If You Win the Popular Imagination, You Change the Game’: Why We Need New Stories on Climate (Rebecca Solnit)
- 2. Ecowriting: A Fieldguide (Gavin Lamb)
- 3. Let’s Story about Storying (Denise Chapman)
- 4. Beyond Nature’s Children: Examining the Environmental, Cultural, and Political Influences that Inform Indigenous Perspectives and Stories about Nature and the Environment (Melissa Greene-Blye)
- Part II: Teaching Ecowriting
- 5. Finding a Place in the World: Ecowriting with Elementary and Middle School Students (Cindy Jenson-Elliott)
- 6. Ecomedia Video Essays (Antonio López)
- 7. Visual Journaling as Ecowriting (Peaches Hash and Theresa Redmond)
- 8. Disrupting Hierarchies of Power and Uplifting Environmental Justice through Collaborative Ecowriting (Alejandro Ojeda, Elmer Ortega, Jenifer Ramos, Vanessa Romero, Neida Sandoval-Lopez, Benjamin Thompson, María Verónica Valeriano, and Jazmine Vega Lopez)
- 9. Grand Appreciation for All Things Natural (Rose White)
- Part III: Student Ecowriting Poems:
- 10. A Meaningful Purpose (Kathy Lizaola)
- 11. The Life of a Fast Fashion Garment Worker (Gabriela Venegas)
- 12. Is It Even Air? (Giselle Villanueva)
- 13. On Vacation (Neida Sandoval-Lopez)
- 14. Hard to Appreciate (Keimora Nettles)
- 15. Feels Like Home Short Stories: (Antonia Burgard, Ludmilla Semskow, Lea Irina Heuing, Jana Kranz, and Philippa Witzenhausen)
- 16. Divisions That Destroy Us (Sara Fernandez)
- 17. Water (Rucha Deshpande)
- 18. Elena and the Mountain (Vanessa Romero)
- 19. The Evolution of the Apple (Elmer Ortega)
- 20. Gardening in the Time of Covid (Esmeralda Orozco Sanchez)
- 21. The Manifestation of Taoism in Environmental Protection ((Alice) Yanan Sun)
- 22. Armando (María Verónica Valeriano)
- 23. I Am a Drop of Water (Yaying Wu)
- 24. Dear Diary Letters: (Arbrean Sears)
- 25. To Our Beautiful Mother (Mandie Torres)
- 26. Dear Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez (Nicole Hall)
- Part IV: Resources for Ecowriting ( Lesson plans: )
- 27. Introduction to Ecowriting Lesson Units (Sydney Richmond and Andrea Gambino)
- 28. Ecowriting Unit One: Exploring Our Relationships with Nature (Sydney Richmond and Andrea Gambino)
- 29. Ecowriting Unit Two: Greenwashing – Disrupting False or Misleading Claims of Environmental Ethics (Sydney Richmond and Andrea Gambino)
- 30. Ecowriting Unit Two: Greenwashing – Instructional Resources Guide (Sydney Richmond and Andrea Gambino)
- 31. Recommended Resources
- Notes on Contributors
- About the Editor
Epigraph
The story of our relationship to the earth is written more truthfully on the land than on the page. It lasts there. The land remembers what we said and what we did. Stories are among our most potent tools for restoring the land as well as our relationship to land. We need to unearth the old stories that live in a place and begin to create new ones, for we are storymakers, not just storytellers (Kimmerer, 2013, p. 341).
References
- Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed.
- From Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Reprinted with permission from Milkweed Editions. milkweed.org
No Más Humanos/No More Humans
Sarawi Andrango
| NO MÁS HUMANOS, Del virus humano nada bueno se espera el ser esencial que está prisionero en él, debe ser liberado para salvar la continuidad. ¡Despierta! Si el humano, no escucha, no ve, no siente, no trasciende ¿para qué existe? La soledad no existe, caminas ciego más bien mientras exista una hormiga, el viento, una flor; nos acompañamos solo que no eres capaz de verlos menos aún sentirlos. ¡Despierta! Si el humano, no escucha, no ve, no siente, no trasciende ¿para qué existe? Las religiones estorban sus credos señalan al humano como superior prometiendo el paraíso a costa de diezmos, sumisión, muerte saquean la paz y armonía del corazón hay que desprenderse del apego a toda figura externa. ¡Despierta! Si el humano, no escucha, no ve, no siente, no trasciende ¿para qué existe? | NO MORE HUMANS, From the human virus, nothing good will come the essential being that is imprisoned in it, must be liberated to save continuity. Wake up! If humans don’t listen, don’t see, don’t feel, don’t transcend why exist? Solitude does not exist, rather, you walk blindly as long as an ant, the wind, a flower exists; we are accompanied It is just that you are not able to see them, much less feel them. Wake up! If humans don’t listen, don’t see, don’t feel, don’t transcend why exist? Religions interfere their creed position humans as superior promising paradise at the cost of tithes, submission, death pillaging peace and harmony from the heart one must shed the attachment to all external forms. Wake up! If humans don’t listen, don’t see, don’t feel, don’t transcend why exist? |
| El individualismo es la debilidad la existencia armónica necesita de la dualidad opuestos complementarios para dar equilibrio a la vida la unión de estos extremos difumina vibraciones El individualismo sobrevive, la dualidad co - existe. ¡Despierta! Si el humano, no escucha, no ve, no siente, no trasciende ¿para qué existe? La medicina eres tú toda enfermedad es creada usada como arma por las transnacionales te envenenan – te curan; el juego letal tu alimento, emociones y vibraciones son la medicina real. ¡Despierta! Si el humano, no escucha, no ve, no siente, no trasciende ¿para qué existe? El tiempo irreal asesina dicen que no se puede olvidar y tampoco no buscar el pasado como no se olvida te aprisiona, el futuro como es incierto te presiona, de todos los tiempos solo el presente permite vivir libre. ¡Despierta! Si el humano, no escucha, no ve, no siente, no trasciende ¿para qué existe? | Individualism is weakness harmonious existence needs duality complimentary opposites give balance to life the union of these extremes sends out vibrations Individualism survives, duality co-exists. Wake up! If humans don’t listen, don’t see, don’t feel, don’t transcend why exist? The medicine is you all illness is created used as a weapon by transnationals they poison you – they cure you; a lethal game your food, emotions and vibrations are the real medicine. Wake up! If humans don’t listen, don’t see, don’t feel, don’t transcend why exist? Unreal time kills they say that one can’t forget nor search the past that is not forgotten imprisons you, the future with its uncertainty pressures you, of all the times only the present allows you to live free. Wake up! If humans don’t listen, don’t see, don’t feel, don’t transcend why exist? |
Land Acknowledgment
Mandie Torres
As Patrick Wolfe (2006) argues, settler colonialism is not just an event of the past; it is deeply embedded in the systems and structures we currently live in and in which we participate. As such, it is important to acknowledge the original caretakers of the lands on which we occupy as a first step to decolonize our world and not perpetuate the ongoing violence against Indigenous peoples. The purpose of a land acknowledgment is to pay respect and honor those who have long looked after the lands which many of us occupy, and not contribute to Indigenous erasure as many of these nations continue to care for these lands. For centuries, many Indigenous groups throughout the world have been actively caring for Mother Earth, and fighting to protect her against destructive colonial and capitalist forces. They have built deep relationships based on reciprocity with the nonhuman world and have engaged in sustainable practices for millennia, from which we can continue to learn and honor.
For example, the Sarayaku community from the Amazon in Ecuador use Kawsak Sacha as a concept to live by. Kawsak Sacha translates to “the living or breathing jungle/forest,” and essentially is the belief that everything in the forest, from the smallest creature to the biggest tree or mountain, are living things with emotions and feelings that we must respect and honor (https://kawsaksacha.org).
Details
- Pages
- XII, 224
- Year
- 2024
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781433199806
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781433199813
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9781433199790
- DOI
- 10.3726/b21296
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2024 (March)
- Keywords
- critical media literacy ecology ecopedagogy ecosystems ecowriting environmental education environmental justice environmental writing multigenre writing nature nature writing and essays sustainability For the Love of Nature Ecowriting the World
- Published
- New York, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, Oxford, 2024. XII, 224 pp., 6 b/w ill., 8 color ill.
