We bundle up in hats and jackets and sit on sleeping pads, trying to keep out the chill of hard packed snow. It’s May but still winter in Wyoming, and we have made camp in an alpine meadow, high up in the Absaroka Range. These “classroom days” are much needed time off from the backpacking and climbing regimen of a month-long National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) educator course. This afternoon, instead of practicing how to read the intricacies of a topographic map or how to safely set up a climbing anchor, we are discussing what it means to write in place: an ecocomposition lesson at 10,000 feet.
Though I might be the teacher of this particular day’s class, everyone present is a mutually interdependent member of the expedition, and hence my primary objective (as is the objective of the course as a whole) is to facilitate dialogue and collaborative learning. I begin the lesson by leading a discussion of some of questions that have been at issue thus far in the course, including those that connect to our specific location—for instance, should the state of Wyoming legalize wolf hunting?—and those that connect to global concerns—such as, what does “conservation” mean in the 21st century? Next, I use think-aloud techniques to model how to perform a close reading of a Gary Snyder poem, and then I guide students through various writing exercises that culminate in their composing their own place-based poems. Finally, I ask students to discuss in small groups how reading and writing poetry might help us conceptually and ethically navigate environmental dilemmas. For instance, how does figurative language complicate our understanding of ecological conservation? How would one construct a poem that explores different positions on wolf hunting? Literature may not be able to solve problems in the same way that public policy can, but in what ways does the aesthetic dimension open space for considering alternatives to the status quo, for imagining counterfactuals, for envisioning what’s possible?
I hope that questions about aesthetics and politics will provoke students to chart the connections between cultural objects, the places where they are coming from, and broader social and environmental contexts. Moreover, I ask students to create their own texts and unpack the cultural assumptions in those texts so that they can become more self-reflective and motivated learners. Every class, whether located in the mountains or a lecture hall, is built on the connections that students form with each other and with the places and communities where they live and work. I thus strive for student learning to be rooted in community and place, and I approach my role in the classroom not as “the expert,” but as a team leader, a mentor, and a guide.
In a course that meets for three hours a week, cultivating both a close-knit community and a sense of place can be a challenging goal. Because of this, I incorporate team-building activities to establish camaraderie, and in both small and large courses, I include opportunities for ongoing student collaboration. For example, in a recent Gen-Ed introduction to literary study course, I developed an assignment in which students worked in groups to create examples of multimedia climate change culture and document the progress of their creative process on our public class blog. Each student individually produced an interpretive close reading of the group’s fictional creation in relation to one or more of the course texts and posted their interpretations on the blog. Having a significant portion of the course work take place online provided occasions for students to continue discussion outside of class, frame those discussions for a broader community beyond the course, and develop literacy skills in a digital environment. At the end of the term, students presented in class their group projects and their individual interpretations, and by so doing were able to see that creative practice and critical analysis both benefit from taking place in a community of scholars. To support further collaboration beyond the classroom, I also provide opportunities for students to connect to local ecosystems and engage in experiential and service learning. In an upper-division environmental writing seminar, for example, I asked students to discuss “The Bean-Field” chapter from Thoreau’s Walden while planting their own beans at a local farm. We returned to the farm throughout the term to tend the bean plants and work with the farm manager and other volunteers harvesting produce and delivering it to a local food bank. In this course, I assessed students not just on their facility in close reading literary passages and constructing arguments about form and style, but also—through journaling exercises and a final portfolio—on their capacity to reflect on the connections between their own educations and issues of social and environmental justice. Though the methods change, my overall goal for student learning is the same wherever I am teaching: I want students to situate literary and cultural texts, their own life histories and experiences, as well as the collaborative learning process itself within multiple communities, both human and nonhuman.
Recognizing that not all students will share my own enthusiasm for thinking about the intertwining of culture, ecology, and politics, and recognizing too that students always hold their own intellectual and emotional investments in such material, I not only encourage dissensus in class discussions but also provide space for students to shape the direction of our courses. During one particularly dynamic discussion that took place in a composition course themed around questions of food justice and food sovereignty, a student from a tribal community in Alaska raised his hand to argue that the North America that Wendell Berry (the author of that day’s reading) and I were talking about did not reflect his own cultural history and values. Some students added similar comments about how they felt alienated by the text while others spoke in favor of Berry’s arguments. The discussion then turned to questions of racial difference, class privilege, and how the students could best engage with Berry’s and each other’s ideas in their own essays. This teaching and learning moment was, from my perspective, especially successful because the students felt empowered to challenge assumptions and expand the range of viewpoints, and because I had to reconsider my own expectations about the course. Partly due to this discussion and partly due to student feedback on a midterm survey—which alerted me to the fact that the students wanted to learn more about local food issues—I changed the readings and assignments in the last unit of the semester so as to include opportunities for students to conduct research about our school’s food service system and about food production and labor issues in the surrounding community. This new focus was not easy, as students had to grapple with their participation in unjust or unsustainable food systems while also acknowledging, at times, how their own habits of consumption exposed them to risk. Nevertheless, the students’ final essays were both more critical and more personally engaged than their writing earlier in the term, and I attributed this to the students’ intellectual curiosity and their willingness to navigate difficult terrain.
Seeing oneself as part of multiple conflicting communities requires confronting power and engaging with difference, and this means that students and teachers alike must be open to change. Such work pays dividends when undertaken in a supportive (even if uncomfortable) classroom environment. A student from the food studies class commented in her end-of-term evaluation that, “I had a conflicting opinion on the class topic, but I felt confident sharing it with the class… My opinions were welcomed and discussed and I really appreciated that.” Similarly, a student from one of my courses focused specifically on climate change remarked that, “In this course, I felt like my ideas and ideals were challenged—in a good way—and I was given the platform to safely explore my opinions on climate change.” The sentiments expressed in these quotes speak to what I see as my overarching tasks as a teacher: to challenge and to support. What I want most for all students is not necessarily that they become well versed in the canon of American Literature or the details of climate change policy, but rather that they learn to examine critically their own and others’ worldviews and, as a result, become more rigorous thinkers and more empathetic citizens.
Though I might be the teacher of this particular day’s class, everyone present is a mutually interdependent member of the expedition, and hence my primary objective (as is the objective of the course as a whole) is to facilitate dialogue and collaborative learning. I begin the lesson by leading a discussion of some of questions that have been at issue thus far in the course, including those that connect to our specific location—for instance, should the state of Wyoming legalize wolf hunting?—and those that connect to global concerns—such as, what does “conservation” mean in the 21st century? Next, I use think-aloud techniques to model how to perform a close reading of a Gary Snyder poem, and then I guide students through various writing exercises that culminate in their composing their own place-based poems. Finally, I ask students to discuss in small groups how reading and writing poetry might help us conceptually and ethically navigate environmental dilemmas. For instance, how does figurative language complicate our understanding of ecological conservation? How would one construct a poem that explores different positions on wolf hunting? Literature may not be able to solve problems in the same way that public policy can, but in what ways does the aesthetic dimension open space for considering alternatives to the status quo, for imagining counterfactuals, for envisioning what’s possible?
I hope that questions about aesthetics and politics will provoke students to chart the connections between cultural objects, the places where they are coming from, and broader social and environmental contexts. Moreover, I ask students to create their own texts and unpack the cultural assumptions in those texts so that they can become more self-reflective and motivated learners. Every class, whether located in the mountains or a lecture hall, is built on the connections that students form with each other and with the places and communities where they live and work. I thus strive for student learning to be rooted in community and place, and I approach my role in the classroom not as “the expert,” but as a team leader, a mentor, and a guide.
In a course that meets for three hours a week, cultivating both a close-knit community and a sense of place can be a challenging goal. Because of this, I incorporate team-building activities to establish camaraderie, and in both small and large courses, I include opportunities for ongoing student collaboration. For example, in a recent Gen-Ed introduction to literary study course, I developed an assignment in which students worked in groups to create examples of multimedia climate change culture and document the progress of their creative process on our public class blog. Each student individually produced an interpretive close reading of the group’s fictional creation in relation to one or more of the course texts and posted their interpretations on the blog. Having a significant portion of the course work take place online provided occasions for students to continue discussion outside of class, frame those discussions for a broader community beyond the course, and develop literacy skills in a digital environment. At the end of the term, students presented in class their group projects and their individual interpretations, and by so doing were able to see that creative practice and critical analysis both benefit from taking place in a community of scholars. To support further collaboration beyond the classroom, I also provide opportunities for students to connect to local ecosystems and engage in experiential and service learning. In an upper-division environmental writing seminar, for example, I asked students to discuss “The Bean-Field” chapter from Thoreau’s Walden while planting their own beans at a local farm. We returned to the farm throughout the term to tend the bean plants and work with the farm manager and other volunteers harvesting produce and delivering it to a local food bank. In this course, I assessed students not just on their facility in close reading literary passages and constructing arguments about form and style, but also—through journaling exercises and a final portfolio—on their capacity to reflect on the connections between their own educations and issues of social and environmental justice. Though the methods change, my overall goal for student learning is the same wherever I am teaching: I want students to situate literary and cultural texts, their own life histories and experiences, as well as the collaborative learning process itself within multiple communities, both human and nonhuman.
Recognizing that not all students will share my own enthusiasm for thinking about the intertwining of culture, ecology, and politics, and recognizing too that students always hold their own intellectual and emotional investments in such material, I not only encourage dissensus in class discussions but also provide space for students to shape the direction of our courses. During one particularly dynamic discussion that took place in a composition course themed around questions of food justice and food sovereignty, a student from a tribal community in Alaska raised his hand to argue that the North America that Wendell Berry (the author of that day’s reading) and I were talking about did not reflect his own cultural history and values. Some students added similar comments about how they felt alienated by the text while others spoke in favor of Berry’s arguments. The discussion then turned to questions of racial difference, class privilege, and how the students could best engage with Berry’s and each other’s ideas in their own essays. This teaching and learning moment was, from my perspective, especially successful because the students felt empowered to challenge assumptions and expand the range of viewpoints, and because I had to reconsider my own expectations about the course. Partly due to this discussion and partly due to student feedback on a midterm survey—which alerted me to the fact that the students wanted to learn more about local food issues—I changed the readings and assignments in the last unit of the semester so as to include opportunities for students to conduct research about our school’s food service system and about food production and labor issues in the surrounding community. This new focus was not easy, as students had to grapple with their participation in unjust or unsustainable food systems while also acknowledging, at times, how their own habits of consumption exposed them to risk. Nevertheless, the students’ final essays were both more critical and more personally engaged than their writing earlier in the term, and I attributed this to the students’ intellectual curiosity and their willingness to navigate difficult terrain.
Seeing oneself as part of multiple conflicting communities requires confronting power and engaging with difference, and this means that students and teachers alike must be open to change. Such work pays dividends when undertaken in a supportive (even if uncomfortable) classroom environment. A student from the food studies class commented in her end-of-term evaluation that, “I had a conflicting opinion on the class topic, but I felt confident sharing it with the class… My opinions were welcomed and discussed and I really appreciated that.” Similarly, a student from one of my courses focused specifically on climate change remarked that, “In this course, I felt like my ideas and ideals were challenged—in a good way—and I was given the platform to safely explore my opinions on climate change.” The sentiments expressed in these quotes speak to what I see as my overarching tasks as a teacher: to challenge and to support. What I want most for all students is not necessarily that they become well versed in the canon of American Literature or the details of climate change policy, but rather that they learn to examine critically their own and others’ worldviews and, as a result, become more rigorous thinkers and more empathetic citizens.