By: Katie Lulla
Costa’s English department is awaiting approval from the Manhattan Beach Unified School District for a new senior English seminar for the 2020-21 school year titled “The Literature of Climate Change” to be taught by English teacher Matthew Wheeler.
In the course, students will study the development of climate fiction and do interpretive writing and creative projects on adapting to a world with a transformed climate. According to Wheeler, the climate fiction genre is any fiction literature or mode of storytelling that creates a world where humans have negatively impacted the environment.
“As a parent and citizen, I absolutely feel that I have a moral obligation to do whatever it is within my power to hopefully make some positive change,” Wheeler said. “I would love to believe some students taking this course will end up bringing this kind of conscientiousness into whatever discipline or job they end up doing, or even just within their family.”
The prospective course has seven units, starting with unit zero and ending with unit omega, the introduction and creative project units respectively. The middle units focus on one of the five imaginaries determined literary scholars: social breakdown, judgment, conspiracy, loss of wilderness and the spheres of civilization created from climate change.
“This last unit is very doomsday, pessimistic dystopian material but we actually end on a subtle note of hope,” Wheeler said. “I hope that this class will be a place for us to imagine what life will be like as we continue to live in a world that is significantly altered by the way human beings treat, use and interact with our environment.”
The majority of the course is based on a collection of fictional short stories, poetry, visual arts and nonfiction reports and documentaries. Each unit will incorporate sub-genres of climate fiction such as solar punk, speculative fiction and environmental science fiction.
“ ‘Monstro’ is one of the most impactful short stories. It captures a lot of the imaginaries,” Wheeler said. “What I’m going to focus on is primarily how climate change will lead to people in power exploiting those who aren’t in power and the way we respond to this crisis.”
During the course, students will read only one book, Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel Parable of the Sower. Students will do interpretive projects and writing on Butler’s futuristic America where unchecked human activity has damaged the climate. One of the most prominent imaginaries in the novel, and the course, is the loss of wilderness.
“[This imaginary] shows the way we respond to this [climate change] crisis, or rather the way we refuse to respond to this crisis, leads to our dehumanization,“ Wheeler said. “Hopefully [this classs] can start promoting some more ecological responsibility and reciprocity.”
If the course is approved, it will be added to the existing seven English senior seminars. According to Wheeler, adding the course will help the master scheduling process as the two seminars that were removed in the 2018-19 school year unbalanced the schedule.
“When we develop the master schedule at Mira Costa, we see how many students sign up for a course, and if there are enough, we usually are able to offer it,” Superintendent Michael Matthews said. “ If students sign up for [this] new course they will be choosing those courses instead of other ones, so it should not impact our staffing [either].”
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