Will Cogswell teaches high school English Language Arts in Midcoast Maine. He has taught high school ELA for ten years in Maine and Salt Lake City, UT; worked with pre-service teachers in Nashville, TN; and taught English to non-native speakers in Bogotá, Colombia. Regardless of the setting, Will aspires to cultivate collaborative, critical thinking and active, engaged citizenship. When Will is not teaching, you can find him reading books with his kids or romping through Maine’s woods, waters, mountains, and snow.
In this lesson, students analyze climate fiction stories and plan their own place-based cli-fi narrative.
Inquire: Students imagine what our world will look like in the future and reflect on the hopes and fears that informed their thinking.
Investigate: Students learn about the genre of climate fiction (cli-fi) then compare and contrast the themes two young Maine authors develop in their cli-fi short stories.
Inspire: Students plan their own cli-fi story that illustrates their vision of what it might take to survive and thrive in the face of present and future climate change.
Students analyze how language reflects our relationship with the natural world and impacts climate change by analyzing the denotation and connotation of the author’s word choices. Students compare Indigenous writers' kinship with nature to more anthropocentric views, then apply these insights in their own nature writing.
Inquire: Students react to words related to climate change and discuss what led to their reactions.
Investigate: Students view examples of connotation, identify the connotation of words in passages, and learn about anthropocentric and kinship relationships to the natural world.
Inspire: Students brainstorm words, complete an outdoor writing exercise, and collectively create a word wall that encourages a healing relationship with nature.
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