Teaching Young Adult Climate Fiction

The goal of this assignment is to create a resource for teachers teaching and students reading cli-fi literature, especially at the middle school and high school level. We will publish these resources on an accessible website, to be determined.

You can help teachers bring out and focus on the climate dimensions of the novels, and emphasize climate context, urgency, inquiry, justice, and taking action. Working with other members of your literature circle for each novel that we read there should be:

A character list with brief descriptions of all significant characters.

Questions students in small groups or a whole class could discuss, divided by sections of the book.

A list of writing assignments students could engage in after finishing the novel. Can these assignments be "public writing?" Can/how should they use ChatGPT?

Several suggestions for additional research students could engage in to further the understanding of climate / climate justice related issues in the novel.

Additional materials teachers could add to the teaching of the novel that would help students more deeply understand the climate dimensions, such as films, websites, scientific information, essays, news articles, etc.     

Several social action activities students could undertake to educate others about climate change or make a difference as their school or community address mitigating (reducing greenhouse gasses) or adapting to climate change.

A list of links to teaching or other potentially resources online about the same novel with a brief, perhaps one sentence, explanation of the resource.

Other teaching ideas or resources?

Some of these resources may already be online, and your group can provide links to them.  Other resources may exist but not emphasize climate dimensions - you can bring those in.

You use ChatGPT on this assignment - it may have good ideas for teaching materials - but be sure to revise materials so that they are truly reflective of the novel, address climate dimensions, and include a statement with the assignment explaining how you used ChatGPT.

Created by: allen.webb@wmich.edu
Revised Date: 1/24