“We have to know who we’re going to go see, right?” And after our research reports were complete, I explained, “We better know what we’re going to try to convince them to do when we get there, right?” Thus the persuasive essays were born. It was our responsibility to have something pertinent to say. And we had to say it well, if we were to truly con- vince these people. After that, students synthesized their thoughts to create
three worlds. The first world in their collective story was the dystopian world they were leaving behind just in the nick of time. Exactly how would it end? What would it sound, feel, look, smell and even taste like? The second world was composed of the historical world settings to which students time traveled. If students were going to interrupt the Con- stitutional Convention, they had better know who was going to be there, what they looked like, and what the Philadelphia State House looked like, as well. And finally, in their new ending—which was really a new beginning—after convinc- ing our historical figures to make a few major changes to our Constitution or Bill of Rights, or whatever, they had to return to a strange new ecotopian world their actions helped to create. Therefore, we had to create and articulate a vision for how to rebuild our world. What exactly would a sustain- able community look, sound, feel, smell and taste like? In order to envision this new world, we learned a variety
of ecological literacy concepts—basically, a whole new set of principles and ideals. Aside from the usual study of non- renewable versus renewable forms of energy, for example, my students also learned the difference between democracy and biocracy, agriculture and permaculture, anthropocentric and
biocentric, mechamimicry and biomimicry, states and biore- gions, and on-the-grid and off-the-grid, to name just a few. When all was said and done, my students had completed
more writing than they had ever done in all their lives. And they loved every minute and word of it. There was never an issue of motivation, because they felt as if they were doing something hopeful to actually save and transform their world. They were engaged from beginning to end. My reward came when all their stories and books were done, and when my student, Livier, proudly proclaimed: “I love writing because if you want to change something or the whole world, just write a story and the story might persuade people that read it to change their whole way of thinking.”
John Gust is a sixth-grade teacher at Environmental Char- ter Middle School in Inglewood, California and the author of books including Adventures in Fantasy: Lessons and Activities in Narrative and Descriptive Writing (Jossey-Bass). To learn more about John’s books or ECMS visit www.
johngust.org or
www.ecmsonline.org.
References Berry, T., The Dream of the Earth, Sierra Club Books, 1988. Boal, A., Theatre of the Oppressed, Theatre Communications Group, 1979. Descartes, R., Meditations, Pacific Publishing Studio, 2010. Freire, P., Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Continuum, 1997.
Kaiser Family Foundation, “Daily Media Use Among Children and Teens Up Dramatically from Five Years Ago”, <
http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedi- a012010nr.cfm>, Accessed January 20, 2010.
Newton, I., Optics, Prometheus Books, 2003. Quinn, D., Ishmael: An Adventure of Mind and Spirit, Bantam, 1992.
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