Course: ENGLISH 102-Literature
Author: Fatema Baldiwala, Los Angeles Valley College
Summary
Transforming factual, scientific, nonfiction work into creative stories or dramas that have at their center a source of energy. Inspired by reading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower about a dystopian community that needs to harness an energy source and form a community to survive.
Strategies
Students spend 3 weeks on this project. The project begins with research, understanding, and discovery of students’ assigned energy source. The next week, as a group, they decided to write a story or a drama by transforming their research into a creative medium. In the last week, they reviewed a different group’s submission for its Understanding and Use of the Energy Source, Descriptive Language & Figurative Devices, Characters and Dialogue, Setting and World-Building, Structure and Organization, Theme and Message & finally gave suggestions for improvement. The project ends with the groups using AI tools to digitize their stories/ dramas.
SLOs
- Students will demonstrate the ability to analyze, interpret, and critically evaluate various forms of literature.
EELOs
- Enable students to identify and articulate existing sustainability threats and challenges related to the course subject area
- Promote critical thinking and problem solving as responses to existing and potential sustainability issues related to the course subject area
- Encourage students to make cross-disciplinary connections among the environmental, social, and/or financial aspects of sustainability as they pertain to the course subject area
- Discover connections between environmental, social, and economic sustainability
- Enable students to identify and articulate existing environmental equity threats and challenges related to the course subject area
- Promote critical thinking and problem solving as responses to existing and potential environmental equity issues related to the course subject area
- Encourage students to make cross-disciplinary connections among the environmental, social, and/or financial aspects of environmental equity as they pertain to the course subject area
- Develop students’ capacity to see action as part of problem solving, and to see their own agency as change makers
Resources and Materials
- Articles/Padlet: EcoLit: Climate Conversations through Literature
Assignment Introduction
In this project, students explore different sources of energy—from solar and wind to coal and lithium—by diving into the science, benefits, and environmental impacts of each. Then, they take their research a creative step further: writing a short story or drama that embeds their assigned energy source into the plot. Whether it’s a dystopian tale powered by hydrogen or a family drama set on a wind farm, these stories illuminate energy in imaginative, compelling ways.
Assignment
The full assignment and student gallery can be accessed here: Exploring Energy Through Storytelling Padlet.
Assessment
- Week 10: Research & Discovery (Upload of research): 10 points
- Week 11: Submission of Group Creative Project: 50 Points
- Week 12: Peer review of projects: 30 points
- Week 12: Writing an analytical paper in MLA Format: 100 points
- Week 13: Uploading final work to Padlet: 10 points