Fall 2023      Volume 51, Number 4

Climate Justice Now: Middle-Grade Book Club Texts to Get Kids Thinking Toward Climate Justice
By Evelyn Pollins, Kristine M. Schutz, and Rebecca Woodard with Anna Bernhardsgruetter, Angie Fortin, Jade Guest, and Naybet Mendoza

Document: Column  

Introductory Paragraph:  As literacy educators interested in learning more about climate justice and supporting teachers in designing and enacting climate pedagogy, we have found our own participation in book clubs to be an influential space for growing our own climate knowledge and considering how we might teach young people about environmental sustainability and climate justice through the English language arts (ELA). Kristine and Becca have shared our own climate-focused book club experiences working with teachers (see Schutz et al., 2022), as well as many examples of picturebooks that can support learning about climate justice (see Schutz & Woodard, 2023; Woodard & Schutz, 2022, 2023). For this issue, we collaborated with a graduate student/former elementary teacher (Evelyn) and preservice teachers (Anna, Angie, Jade, and Naybet) who have taken a literacy methods course with us in which we inquire into water justice to extend the idea of using book clubs with middle-grade novels to help young people deepen their understandings about climate justice through explorations of the three anchoring themes we elaborated on in the last three columns: (1) interconnectedness, (2) relationality, and (3) action.

DOI:   https://doi.org/10.33600/IRCJ.51.4.2023.66

Page Numbers:   66-73