Sustainable Literary Classrooms

This book explores how Education for Sustainability and the Environment (ESE) can form an integral part of the teaching of fiction, drama, and poetry with teenage and adult learners.

Building on posthumanism, postcritique, and resonance theory, this book answers an important question: since the environment can no longer be regarded as a fixed backdrop for human action, how can literature help students live and thrive in the Anthropocene? Engaging with empirical case studies of creative and exploratory teaching, and couched in theory drawn from pedagogy and the Environmental Humanities, the book argues that good ESE in the context of literary education must start from an understanding of what good literary pedagogy is. As such, it rejects the common search for texts that transform learners into sustainable citizens, viewing this as an instrumentalization of literature which is unsustainable in its own right. Instead, the book highlights the potential of literary reading and discussion in honing students’ capacities for critical thinking, tolerance of viewpoint diversity, and dwelling on complex societal and existential dilemmas. Its case studies feature high school and university students, practicing teachers, and students of Norwegian as a second language, who each work on high-quality texts of poetry, drama, and narrative fiction. A central aim is to provide inspiration for practitioners who wish to integrate ESE in their teaching of literature without becoming didactic or compromising on the analytical, ethical, and creative potential of imaginative literature. It features thorough descriptions of pedagogical approaches and explains how they can be adapted in diverse settings.

Sustainable Literary Classrooms will provide student teachers and teachers of literature on all levels with theoretical motivations and pedagogical ideas for integrating ESE in the literary classroom.