ENGL 15: Sustainability

ENGL 15: Sustainability is an English course with sustainability as the overarching topic of study and writing. Students are assigned essays to read from the text [Sustainability, by Christian R. Weisser], in addition to other sources. These readings and students’ additional research is utilized to fuel all-class and small-group discussions. The aim of the reading material and discussions is to bring about an understanding of the numerous threats to our environment. Furthermore, the course encourages students to attempt to draw conclusions about what we may do, individually and collectively, to mitigate the damage already done, and then to strengthen and re-energize our world. In addition, we will make use of a number of videos chosen to augment the content of the course.

The text, Sustainability: A Bedford Spotlight Reader, was written by Christian R. Weisser, chair of our English Department. There are six units with four-seven essays in each, beginning with the early writers about sustainability (John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, for example), and coming up to the present time with writers such as former Vice President Al Gore. Some text essays study natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, and what neighborhoods did and are doing to recover in sustainable ways. Other essays take a look at our carbon footprints and learning to live with a lot less than we do. Questions at the end of each essay provide excellent starting points for short student essay responses and class discussion. Through the short essays in the text and videos and other materials, we begin to understand some of the ideas and actual plans that are impelling the growth of new communities and recovering older, damaged ones.

The course begins with a study of global environmental threats such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We make liberal use of the National Geographic charts, maps, and written descriptions, for example. Through numerous videos – such as the heartbreaking albatross research by Chris Jordan and the compelling videos and writings of David Suzuki, world class environmentalist and expert on sustainability – documentation of the sickness of the environment is brought home to the viewers. However, most of the videos used in the course also give suggestions and ways to remain hopeful and helpful in the face of environmental destruction. So the course moves from the overview of the planet, on to neighborhoods, and finally, to each student’s personal pledge to live more sustainably in ten very specific, researched ways. It seems that this is a formula that works well, in that students can take control of how they respond to the very disturbing environmental news all around us by devising means – one person at a time – to tackle the problems in significant and lasting ways.