LLED565M

This course introduces educators to a range of contemporary issues and trends in children’s literature, particularly in light of the new British Columbia Ministry of Education curriculum emphasis on environmental literacy and sustainability. Through teaching children’s literature educators help students examine values and behaviours to secure sustainable futures using multimodal learning strategies and multiliteracies. Considering global and Canadian contexts in print and multimedia texts (e.g., story books, fairy tales, graphic novels, YA novels), participants will explore thematic socio-cultural issues including (but not limited to): environmental injustice and social action; sense of place; Indigenous storytelling and land; utopias/dystopias; “cli-fi” (climate fiction); ecological values and ethics; and the animal and nonhuman. This course combines two primary approaches to “environmental” children’s literature – critical and pedagogical – by looking at both theoretical and educator-orientated inquiries.