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 conversation with each other. This juxtaposition can bring key concepts into relief, as well as help students articulate the priorities of each writer because there […]
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 from it. Despite receiving a constant barrage of information, or perhaps because of it, our information-glutted minds seem to […]
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 and animals and human animals. Thinking about parts of nature in isolation from other parts is an all too familiar tendency. The act of overlooking the role of soil […]
“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 Are Water Protectors. The day before, I had read the book aloud to my students, enjoying the novelty of holding the pages close to […]
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 helpful cue to all the actors on the stage – to focus on conveying the risks involved as a character made […]
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 viewing experience. Her exploration of what it means to be a conservationist amid the threat of rolled back protections for public lands […]
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 creative nonfiction that encourages non-linear storytelling. Three narratives are brought together by connecting words or images that puts the threads into conversation […]
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 fires, resource depletion, and rising sea levels. Last year, the novel appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, twenty-three years […]
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 a small lizard covered in ash, demonstrating just how far the smoke and ash had traveled. One of the largest fires […]
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 disconnection. One way I’ve tried to address this gap in the virtual classroom is to use poetry writing as an entry point for […]
