Eric Miller is bringing the green thumb to reading and writing.
Environmental English is a new semester-long course being offered to 11th and 12th graders next year. Being taught by Miller, an environmental enthusiast, the class falls under the Language Arts category on the updated course list. The only prerequisite for the class is successful completion of 11th grade equivalent coursework – LA 11 or AP Language Composition.
“Science is busy with everything,” Miller said. “This class is a way to bring in writing that’s not strictly just literature, but that is narrative writing – that’s also informative and interesting.”
Environmental English will be looking at specific historical figures and their writings about our world.
“Some of the best explorers out there are those who have made scientific inquiries,” Miller said. “Even the romantics sat and observed the world and documented it. So we have this rich wealth of texts across genres that addresses the natural world and the environment.”
Miller emphasized that this will be a writing heavy course. The class will look at both fiction and nonfiction writing/texts that address the natural world: joy and terror, growth and decline, destruction and creation, and one’s place in the world.
Different types of texts include, but are not limited to, mythical, scientific, advocacy, and contemplation. Students will then attempt to write in these various modes/styles of writing themselves.
Miller also hopes to include a film and a community project throughout the semester. The community project would be proposing “something somewhere, whether that’s to a school board, a class, a neighborhood, or the city of De Pere.”
Miller’s purpose is to make the students “understand the wealth of perspectives”, for different perspectives enhance communication. He wants the students to question how one takes action if they want to, and how students can appreciate what is changing in our world, all through past and contemporary texts.
He hopes “that each person can find something that is in their wheelhouse, and also stretches their ability with those writing styles that aren’t there.”
Miller says, “it was exciting and terrifying to propose a new course… but it comes from a place of excitement.”
Possible units + Miller’s explanation:
- In Awe of the natural world – positive, “feel good”
- In fear of the natural world – “I like bringing vulnerability to a course, because I think that’s important for learning.”
- Warning and wonder (science writing-narrative non-fiction) – mix of first two units but with non-fiction writing
- Working the land/with the land – agriculture essays and writing – “We celebrate those who work the land, we’ve also made it very difficult for people to work the land in a conscientious way. I think to give credence to, where’s the compromise?”
