Teaching ELA in the 21st

     We Don't Have Time for This  Text Animation/Book Trailer      In response to the texts that I read on environmental justice, I decided to create a text animation/book trailer for We Don't Have Time for This  by Brianna Craft. Initially, I had hoped to create a text animation as a summary of the entire novel because many of my favorite parts of the novel (when the plot ties in nonfiction historical events of environmental racism into its events, the outcome of speaking at the city council meeting on halting the creation of the pipeline, why the cover speaks of romance when Isa and Darius are initially pinned as enemies) happen in the later half of the novel. However, when I began looking for clips to include in my multimodal creation for the text animation I quickly realized that finding clips and creating a animated summary for an entire novel would be far outside of my comfort zone (and may infringe of the content that is considered " fair u...

 Book Talk on the Text Set     For more on my mention of how texts like these and community organizing can build resilience in young people, click here ! Incorporating Environmental Justice into Teaching      The topic of environmental justice is a high interest topic that many young people are very engaged in, and, luckily, it can be connected to many texts that are taught in the ELA classroom. Any story, fiction or nonfiction, where the setting is or has been at risk or is now different or affected by climate change is able to connect to the topic of environmental justice. In my teaching, I see connections for this topic in our unit about survival. Specifically, there is a text in this unit where we read an excerpt of A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, which focuses on the story of Salva Dut. After reading this excerpt, we explore Salva Dut's later life, including the nonprofit he eventually founded titled Water for South Sudan . All of the texts I r...