Climate justice literacy: Stories-we-live-by, ecolinguistics, and classroom practice

Abstract

Literacy educators can guide students to examine the stories we live by, or the larger narratives that guide individual and collective sensemaking about relationships between humans and the environment. Drawing from the field of ecolinguistics, the authors consider two ecologically destructive stories we live by: Humans are the center of existence, and consumerism is a main pathway to happiness and fulfillment. The authors also explore three intersecting beneficial stories we live by that center on indigenous perspectives, feminist foundations of climate justice, and youth activism. This work is rooted in three essential understandings about climate change: It is a complex socioscientific topic and escalating problem, engaging with climate change is mediated primarily by a complicated array of motivated digital texts and motivated readers, and climate change is about climate (in)justice. The authors conclude with ideas about being a climate justice literacy educator.