Writing, Literature, and Storytelling to Change the World

How do writing, literature, and storytelling help us imagine, understand, and respond to the social and ecological challenges of our changing world? How do poems and narratives connect us to universal themes across space and time as we reflect on our lives, cultures, and identities, develop our voices, work to transform our collective histories, and understand our human connection to the natural world?

We will explore pivotal texts from 1000 years of literature that give perspective on the relationship between people and place. From Beowulf’s elegiac lament or Sir Gawain’s encounter with the Green Knight that explore mythic connections to the natural world, to William Blake’s manuscripts and inspired vision of social justice written in reaction to the early effects of the industrial revolution, to American transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman writing prior to the Civil War, to indigenous writers such as Linda Hogan writing in response to colonial histories, to sci-fi and speculative fiction writers such as Octavia Butler, to poets and spoken-word artists, short-story writers, essayists, natural history writers, and others--we will explore the power of words to help us understand the past, be of service to the present, and imagine the future in a changing world.

Students will learn to identify poetic and narrative forms and structures, the relationships between words, images, voice, and text in oral and manuscript traditions. They will examine the literary forms of short stories, novels, essays, and poems, and apply the lenses and tools of literary analysis, research, ecocriticism, and climate fiction that explore the intersections between language, literature, story, culture, natural history, and an ecology of language and place. Students will develop skills in writing, storytelling, and literature, as they participate in workshops that explore the spoken and written word, fiction and non-fiction, poetry, persuasive writing as advocacy, and other genres.

Students will work in peer-groups as they develop two writing projects of their choice (3-7 pages each). They will develop an individual project based on a topic, theme, author, or issue of interest. They will submit brief (300-word) reading reflections, and they will contribute a favorite text to a class anthology: a selection of short stories, poems, essays, or excerpts from novels that explore themes of natural history, social and environmental justice, ecocriticism, climate fiction, and ecological literature to change the world.

Texts include: Seamus Heaney, Beowulf or Simon Armitage, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience and Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Henry David Thoreau, “Walking,” “Civil Disobedience,” and an excerpt from Walden;' Walt Whitman, excerpts from Leaves of Grass; Linda Hogan, “Walking,” and Mean Spirit; and Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower. Students will also read selections from a class anthology that includes excerpts from John Steinbeck, Ursula Le Guinn, Rachel Carson, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Amatov Gosh, Margaret Atwood, Ted Chiang, Terry Tempest Williams, Gary Snyder, Annie Dillard, Mary Olivier, Gil Scott Herron, Saul Williams, and others and references to stories, screenplays, podcasts, or films.

12 credits: In addition to the program, students who enroll for 12 credits develop 4 credit “in-program” Individual Learning Contract (ILC) or Internship related to program themes, and that will develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Anticipated Fall Credit Equivalencies:

Students taking 8 credits will work to demonstrate advanced work in the following (or related) areas:

4: English and American Literature—Themes in Ecocriticism

4: Writing: Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction

Other credits will include credits based on the focus and demonstration of student work. For example: climate fiction, journalism and podcasting, or other area etc.