My newest class

This week was the start of a new semester. For me that means I am teaching one new class, ecology for 11th and 12th graders. At the first meeting of the critical literacy class I'm taking, I thought my ecology class would be the perfect place to introduce students to how to look at issues from a critical literacy perspective. Throughout the class, I am planning to focus on environmental issues and I am hoping students will start to think about how they view these issues and what shapes their perspective.

In class today, students thought about whether they consider themselves an environmentalist. First students discussed it based on their personal definitions of environmentalists based on the previous context in which they knew the word. After that we looked at other ways that it could be defined and students reevaluated their initial thoughts and the way they define the word. It was great to hear their discussions and see how different outlooks can modify their thinking.