Teaching environmental writing: ecocritical pedagogy and poetics

Environmental writing is an increasingly popular literary genre, and a multifaceted genre at that. Recently dominated by works of ‘new nature writing’, environmental writing includes works of poetry and fiction about the environment. In the last two decades, universities have begun to offer environmental writing modules and courses with the intention of teaching students skills in the field of writing inspired by the natural world. This book asks how students are being guided into writing about environments. Informed by independently conducted interviews with educators and students, and a review of existing pedagogical guides, it explores recurring instructions given to students for writing about the environment and compares these pedagogical approaches to the current theory and practice of ecocriticism. Proposing a set of original pedagogical exercises influenced by ecocriticism, the book draws on a number of self-reflexive, environmentally conscious poets as creative and stimulating models for educators and students.