Composition and Sustainability: Teaching for a Threatened Generation. Refiguring English Studies. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 458 601 CS 217 721 AUTHOR Owens, Derek TITLE Composition and Sustainability: Teaching for a Threatened Generation. Refiguring English Studies. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL. ISBN ISBN-0-8141-0037-6 ISSN ISSN-1073-9637 PUB DATE 2001-00-00 NOTE 274p. AVAILABLE FROM National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096 (Stock No. 00376-1659; members, $23.95; nonmembers, $33.95) .Tel: 800-369-6283; Web site: http://www.ncte.org. PUB TYPE Guides Non-Classroom (055) Opinion Papers (120) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC11 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Case Studies; *Classroom Techniques; *Curriculum Development; *English Curriculum; Futures (of Society); Higher Education; *Rhetoric; *Teacher Role; *Writing Instruction IDENTIFIERS *Sustainability; Writing Contexts ABSTRACT This book is intended to be a stimulus for educators who want to teach or plan curriculum with the long view in mind. The book states that although sustainability--meeting today's needs without jeopardizing the interests of future generations--has become a dominating force in diverse disciplines, it has yet to play a substantive role in English studies. It argues that, in light of worsening environmental crises and accelerating social injustices, there is a need to use sustainability as a way to structure courses and curricula, and that composition studies, with its inherent cross-disciplinarity and its unique function in students' academic lives, can play a key role in giving sustainability a central place in students' thinking and in the curriculum as a whole. Presenting his own classroom, the book's educator/author draws on student writing to articulate a pedagogy that gives students opportunities to think and write in three zones of inquiry: place, work, and future.
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