Teaching Writing in the Age of Catastrophic Climate Change

Catastrophic storms, searing heat waves, crumbling waterfronts, warming oceans, air-fouling forest fires and mass extinction have become facts of life. Under these conditions, it is difficult to imagine that the global industrial civilization will continue in its present form. This requires us to reconsider the subject of ecocomposition from a new perspective: “What does it mean to teach college writing in the face of this sobering reality?” The introduction reviews the history of ecocomposition and reframes it in light of the apocalyptic turn in climate discourse over the last quarter century as well as the role that ecocomposition theory can play in framing these discussions. Teaching Writing in the Age of Catastrophic Climate Change is organized into four sections. The first section considers the environmental narrative from the viewpoint of climate justice, while the second reframes pedagogies of place in light of the climate catastrophe. The third section examines the intersections of writing studies and the natural sciences, while the fourth section entertains the personal and emotional dimensions of teaching ecocomposition within the framework of catastrophic climate change. If we have been successful, these chapters provide a starting place for having sobering discussions in our classrooms, and considering what ecocomposition means in this unsettling age.