By Ashley Pocrnich
Despite her concern about the planet, KPU English instructor Dale Tracy finds comfort teaching about climate change.
“I have a lot of climate anxiety and it makes me feel better to think ‘look at all these people learning, who are going to have such strong voices,’” she said, “I’m teaching them to be empowered through their ability to communicate confidently.”
In Tracy’s three sections of ENGL 1100: Introduction to University Writing this semester, students got a taste of how the power of the written word can affect real world issues like climate change.
Her students learned how to use evidence to support their points in an argumentative paragraph in one assignment, using readings suggested by Ellen Pond on the Climate+ Challenge instructors’ site. For another assignment, they wrote persuasive letters arguing for change on a specific issue, like climate change, colonialism or transphobia.
One of the most exciting factors about the letter-writing assignment was the chance the letters might actually be sent off, Tracy says.
Her students seem to embrace learning about climate change.
“I think students are really wanting to think about it, even though it can be stressful because of climate anxiety, but I’ve had a really nice response from students this term and last term,” she said.
Some of the students taking ENGL 1100 are new to the university experience, while others are later-year students. If you’re going to teach them how to communicate, she says, it’s a good idea to teach them what to communicate about, as well.
Tracy has been attending the twice-monthly Climate+ Coffee meetings hosted by the coordinators of the project, Pond, Leonora King and Tracy Sherlock. They’ve helped her find a place at KPU, where she hasn’t been teaching for long. She says that gathering with like-minded people has “allow[ed] new connections to form.”
When the Climate+ Challenge launched in fall 2021, most of the classes were in the Faculty of Arts. While it has expanded across the university now, Tracy says writing fits very well into climate change learning.
“Because it’s a writing course, and I really understand writing as a social activity, I love how being part of the Climate+ Challenge has helped me to make that so clear to students — that writing is something that takes place in the world, among people,” she said.
“It’s not about getting the grammar right or wrong… it’s something that allows you to connect with other people about important things.”