The Green Literacy Handbook

Green Literacy

The HANDBOOK

Inspire Environmental Stewardship Through Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing, Grades K–5

MARY K. GOVE

Copyright © 2026 by Solution Tree Press

Materials appearing here are copyrighted. With one exception, all rights are reserved. Readers may reproduce only those pages marked “Reproducible.” Otherwise, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the publisher. This book, in whole or in part, may not be included in a large language model, used to train AI, or uploaded into any AI system.

The content and ideas in this book are the original work of the authors. AI tools were occasionally used to refine sentence structure and grammar, not to generate substantive material.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Johnson, Jen Cullerton, author. | Gove, Mary K., author.

Title: The green literacy handbook : inspire environmental stewardship through critical thinking, reading, and writing, grades k-5 / Jen Cullerton Johnson, Mary K. Gove.

Description: Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree Press, [2025] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024054016 (print) | LCCN 2024054017 (ebook) | ISBN 9781960574480 (paperback) | ISBN 9781960574497 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Environmental economics--Study and teaching (Elementary)

Classification: LCC HC79.E5 J65156 2025 (print) | LCC HC79.E5 (ebook) | DDC 372.8--dc23/eng/20250219

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024054016

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024054017

Solution Tree

Jeffrey C. Jones, CEO

Edmund M. Ackerman, President

Solution Tree Press

Publisher: Kendra Slayton

Associate Publisher: Todd Brakke

Acquisitions Director: Hilary Goff

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Developmental Editor: Kate St. Ives

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Editorial Assistant: Madison Chartier

Always for Fernando. With love for my son, Nico, and my goddaughter, Mica.

—JCJ

I dedicate this book to Alec Zenil, my grandson. May the Earth be a better place for him to live.

—MKG

Acknowledgments

I’m grateful to God for all things. Thank you to Mary Gove for being a mentor and friend. For my Chicago family: Fernando, Nico, Colleen, Brian, Jack, Amy, John, Deb, Jim, and all my cousins. To my family in Argentina: Patricia, Silvina, Lorena, Walter, Ariel, Marianna, Lucia, Leo, Gina, Mateo, Mica, and Malena. In memory of my parents, grandparents, and father-in-law. Thank you to my fellow writers and friends: Bridget Joyce, Carol Moran, Amy Judt, Danielle Wynn, and Jane Gangi. To the work of Dr. Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement (GBM); Lisa Merton and the GBM board; and Jennifer Seydel of the Green Schools Network, Andrea Holbrook, and Al Stenstrup, which planted many seeds. To Jim Cummings and Kijana Schools, Barbara Koenen and the CCRx team. Thanks to all my colleagues at Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Teachers Union, Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, and Wright College: Walter Taylor, Tara Whitehair, Susan Grace, Mr. Ward, Dr. Leonard Harris, Dianne Johnson, Regina Hanks, Steve Hyman, Mojisola Gray, Saleha Banu, Ms. Branch, Ms. Carlos, and Mr. Washington. A round of applause for our editor, Kate St. Ives, with support from Miranda Addonizio. Thank you to Dr. Lisa Ravindra, Dr. Jo Hayes, Richard Leonard, and Susan Temple. Very special thanks to Dr. Patty Dean for her friendship and support for all things reading—you are a light! To teachers, students, readers, and champions of Green Literacy—past, present, and future—you give it life. Thank you.

—JCJ

Iwould like to acknowledge that the genesis of Green Literacy occurred with inspiration from Dennis Sebian, whose environmentalism opened my eyes to the degradation of our natural world caused by industrialization and globalism. Over seventeen years ago, Dennis and I began giving talks about “ecological critical literacy” using children’s books as springboards. In 2008, Dennis passed away. In 2010, Jen and I met at a Green Schools conference, where the conference organizers put us together. Meeting Jen and working with her on this Green Literacy journey have enriched my life; I am grateful for our work and the fun we have had together. Thanks to the teachers in our professional development programs with whom we have shared experiences and from whom we have learned. Thanks also to Kate St. Ives, our editor, for her insightful questions and nudges. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the many supportive people in my life: my husband, George; my daughter, Jessica; and countless friends in Cleveland and in Gainesville Cohousing.

—MKG

Solution Tree Press would like to thank the following reviewers:

Tonya Alexander

English Teacher (NBCT)

Owego Free Academy

Owego, New York

Ian Landy

Regional Principal of PIE School District 47

Powell River, British Columbia, Canada

Shanna Martin

Middle School Teacher & Instructional Coach

School District of Lomira

Lomira, Wisconsin

Christie Shealy

Director of Testing and Accountability

Anderson School District One Williamston, South Carolina

Sheryl Walters

Senior School Assistant Principal Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/literacy to download the free reproducibles in this book.

CHAPTER 6

How Extreme Weather Events Connect Our Communities

Phase 1: Engage

Phase 2: Empower

Phase 3: Shift

CHAPTER 7

How Systems Thinking Changes Our World 159

Phase 1: Engage 159 Phase 2: Empower

Phase 3: Shift

EPILOGUE

We Transform Futures Together

We Transform the Way Forward

We Transform Through Collaboration 185

We Transform Through Green Literacy Professional Development . . 186

We Transform Through Connections With Community Members . . 188 Final Thoughts 190

APPENDIX A

Green Literacy Thematic Unit Planning Template

Green Literacy Thematic Unit Planning Template

APPENDIX B

193

194

Choice Boards for Chapters 5–7 197

Exploring the Power of Landscapes: Chapter 5 .

Bridging Communities Through Extreme Weather: Chapter 6 . . . . 199

Making Connections With Systems Thinking: Chapter 7 200

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

About the Authors

Jen Cullerton Johnson is an award-winning children’s author, educator, and environmental advocate. She teaches at Chicago Public Schools and has been an adjunct instructor at Wilbur Wright College, City Colleges of Chicago. Jen has nearly two decades of teach ing experience. Her educational career has spanned diverse settings, including working with incarcerated youth and in urban classrooms; teaching abroad in Japan, Ecuador, and Argentina; and leading nature-writing workshops in outdoor settings.

A champion for trees and environmental education, Jen is a certified TreeKeeper for the city of Chicago, where she volunteers to care for and advocate for urban trees. Her passion for trees has taken her across the globe. She has planted trees in Kenya with the Green Belt Movement, and in 2025, begins a Forest Therapy guide training. Her short stories and essays have been recognized with numerous awards and honors, including grants from the Illinois Arts Council; an ambassador’s award to study writing in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; and a teacher travel study with other educators from the Morton Arboretum in 2025 to further her studies on trees and biodiversity in Mexico.

Jen is the author of The Story of Environmentalist Wangari Maathai (2019) and its forthcoming Spanish translation in 2025. Her award-winning picture book Seeds of Change (2010) has been a bestseller for over a decade and is now available in Spanish ( Semillas de cambio, 2024). She is an experienced presenter, sharing her expertise at conferences and professional development workshops across the United States and abroad, including presentations for the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA), the Green Schools National Network, and the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE).

Jen earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature and Spanish language from Indiana University, a master’s degree in education from Loyola University Chicago, and a master of fine arts in creative writing from the University of New Orleans.

Mary K. Gove, PhD, is professor emerita at Cleveland State University, as well as a coauthor of Reading and Learning to Read , which promotes a balanced approach to literacy education and has been used in undergraduate and graduate literacy education programs since the early 2000s. Her award-winning dissertation, “Beliefs About Reading,” continues to be a cornerstone of textbooks.

Before teaching at Cleveland State, Mary taught grades K–6 in public schools, was a reading specialist for grades 1–6, and worked in an urban district as a full-time professional developer. She won various awards for several professional development programs she spearheaded during the 1990s as she worked as an urban school district’s professional developer.

She has published many articles in professional journals as well as written book chapters. In 2021, she and Jen Cullerton Johnson published the chapter “Green Literacy K–5: Nurturing a Scientific Mindset” in Age of Inference: Cultivating a Scientific Mindset

Mary has presented at numerous conferences, such as those of the International Literacy Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, and the Green Schools National Network. Before and during her work at Cleveland State University, she wrote and led many grant efforts toward professional development, most of them organized around action research. While teaching at Cleveland State, she focused on critical literacy, professional development centered on action research, and ecological awareness and Green Literacy.

Mary attained a teaching degree from Drury College in Springfield, Missouri, and a master’s degree and doctorate from Kent State University. She now resides in Gainesville Cohousing in Gainesville, Florida, where she and her husband, George, have a private house and share common spaces, including a common house, a swimming pool, a garden, and a workshop, as well as lots of fun.

To book Jen Cullerton Johnson or Mary K. Gove for professional development, contact pd@SolutionTree.com.

“I teach fourth grade. This year, I am all about getting ready for standardized testing. I see the need for my students to get involved with environmental issues beyond Earth Day, but I need to focus on literacy and math.”

—Rachel

“I teach second grade in the city. The neighborhood is a little dangerous, so our school doesn’t have a garden. We don’t go outside much. I need ways to engage my urban students on environmental issues in the classroom and relate to their city life.”

—Nick

“Environmental issues are enormous and scary, and they are messy. I don’t even know how to bring up something like climate change except in a superficial way. My students recycle, and my students turn off the lights, but really, how do you start a deeper conversation? It would be more doable to use something familiar to my fifth-grade students and me.”

—Sharia

“I’ve got a big concern. I want to talk about environmental problems with my students. But the environment and problems like fracking have become so politicized in the news that I am a bit afraid to do so. Is there a way I can start this conversation so that it won’t push the buttons of parents who have economic concerns?”

—Henry

“So many demands are placed on me as a classroom teacher. I believe in my third graders’ thinking about the environment. We created a classroom garden last year, and that’s great, but I want to start something where my students think deeper. I don’t know if I have the time or know how to do it. If there was a way to add to what I am doing now, I might be interested in trying it.”

—Aziza

PREFACE What Is Green Literacy?

We all share one planet and are one humanity; there is no escaping this reality.

While at a districtwide summer meeting on core curriculum in 2012, we presented ways to bring environmental awareness into K–5 classrooms. Teachers discussed two “big idea” questions.

1. How do we, as educators, bring critical environmental issues into our classrooms?

2. What holds us back from adding deep discussions about environmental challenges?

After we requested their permission to record them, the teachers shared their thoughts and feelings. Many teachers expressed they were willing to raise young people’s environmental consciousness but were uncertain how to proceed when challenges arose. During this presentation, what struck us was these teachers’ intention to take care of the living world and, in our case, a sincere willingness to facilitate similar connections for students.

Later, as we culled the recorded dialogue, we found that despite their support for student environmental awareness, teachers face concerns, reasonable doubts, and significant challenges in trying to birth those connections. Here, we’ve

reconstructed what these teachers shared in a roundtable discussion about the challenges of teaching environmental issues in their classrooms.

Talking with these teachers, we recognized their thoughts and feelings. We felt them too. We’ve often grappled with fears, concerns, and doubts about teaching controversial environmental issues. Some years, our students made great strides. In other years, we made mistakes that hindered environmental awareness. Throughout our experiences, we’ve valued providing young people with classroom time to develop their voices and visions on complex environmental situations in which we have hope they will become future environmental leaders.

From this place of shared concern, we explored formal ways of bridging environmental awareness in students with the academic learning they must do in classrooms. We acknowledge that this work is ongoing and extensive. We see a growing demand from teachers locally and globally to incorporate more environmental awareness into their classrooms. Although we acknowledge the need for students to learn scientific principles, in our ongoing work and in this book, we seek to empower teachers and students through dialogue that considers environmental justice by making connections between the power of stories and environmental challenges. We believe sincere interactions with the living world often lead to student-initiated earth stewardship.

After a decade-long process of working with teachers and students of various subjects and backgrounds in both rural and urban areas and public and private spaces, community associations, and religious organizations, we coined the term and concept of Green Literacy. Green Literacy is a literacy-based practice anchored in our relationship with the Earth and humanity, rooted in environmental justice, and stemming from critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy aims to empower students by encouraging them to question established knowledge, actively participate in their learning, and become agents of change. Questioning established knowledge often invites students to think critically about power dynamics within environmental issues. Green Literacy is a teaching practice that develops in-depth thinking, dialogues, and responses to the complexities of our relationship with the environment. Green Literacy uses multiple texts and digital media as catalysts for shifting perspectives with critical conversations. It is fixed in critical pedagogy so that students examine the social context of environmental justice issues, which includes but is not limited to race, class, and gender. Rooting Green Literacy in critical pedagogy empowers students to scrutinize the intricate matrix of environmental justice.

We support a transformative approach to teaching that weaves environmental awareness into every moment of learning every day of the year. Green Literacy disrupts traditional thinking and reveals how social and environmental challenges are profoundly connected. Green Literacy helps you empower students to uncover dynamics in texts that expose connections to environmental justice. You lead students to question narratives, uncover deeper meanings, and challenge how messages shape their understanding of the world. Together, you and your students confront these questions boldly and purposefully. Green Literacy reimagines how we all think, learn, and act about environmental issues. It connects social and environmental challenges, sparking critical thinking and inspiring action.

During Green Literacy professional development sessions, we often share the picture book Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (2009). We invite teachers to decide whether the image on the page depicts a duck or a rabbit. The optical illusion sparks curiosity: Is it a duck? Or is it a rabbit? Some teachers can see only a rabbit, while others see only a duck, seemingly stuck in their own perspectives. It isn’t until near the end of the book that a shift in perspective occurs, and the image is seen differently. Suddenly, a duck becomes a rabbit, and a rabbit becomes a duck. When the reader steps back, they can see both a duck and a rabbit simultaneously. The set perspective followed by the moment of realization mirrors the way people often approach environmental issues. For example, take the issue of deforestation. Some people might focus on the economic benefits, like job creation and the use of timber, while others might just see the environmental harm, such as the loss of forests and wildlife. When we step back and look at the bigger picture, we can see the two sides are connected. When we reach sustainable solutions, like responsible logging or reforestation, we can meet economic needs while protecting the environment. Like in Duck! Rabbit! , shifting perspectives helps us see the whole story and find better ways to address challenges.

Our goal in writing and publishing The Green Literacy Handbook is to influence your and your students’ perspectives on environmental and social issues. By this, we mean that you and your students will broaden your perspectives. As classroom teachers in the urban areas of Chicago and Cleveland, we have witnessed how Green Literacy practices help students develop a deeper understanding of diverse perspectives (to see both the duck and the rabbit) and articulate and amplify their voices on critical topics related to environmental justice. Further, we have observed that as Green Literacy practices help students find their voices and express their perspectives on environmental issues, they are empowered to advocate for sustainability and justice in their communities.

Our Vision for Green Literacy

We see you and your students developing continuous shifts in perspective, a magnification of thought, more compassion for the natural world, and an ability to grasp and respect our connections to each other and all living things. We believe future generations will need to be able to see many sides and the big picture if they want to solve environmental justice challenges.

We envision The Green Literacy Handbook as a tool for all teachers and students who want to engage with environmental challenges presented in the familiar formats of children’s books and digital media, which act as springboards for critical thinking and critical dialogue.

We view the practices found within these chapters as a portal of empowerment for young people to cultivate their own voices, articulate the voices of others, and, through this process, create their own critical stance on social justice and environmental issues that affect the world they live in.

We believe that the state of our planet depends on how people, especially young people and their teachers, as part of a global society of concerned citizens, shift perspectives. Through student-initiated projects, small and large, teachers and their students can contribute to sustainability through systemic change.

We stand for a certain type of teaching, one that facilitates an open and nonauthoritarian stance among teachers and their students and questions power relations. Through this, we recognize the classroom as a microcosm of society where power dynamics reflect broader societal issues. By questioning and analyzing these power relations, both you and your students can understand and address the uneven distribution of power and privilege that influences environmental decisions and policies. To bring about systemic change, first, we must have a safe space and abundant time to connect with others so all voices are valued and examined creatively over time. Creating safe spaces allows for the nurturing of critical dialogue where every student feels heard. Deep understanding and meaningful connections develop not in haste but through sustained, thoughtful conversations. Over time, this process can cultivate a community of learners equipped to collaboratively work toward systemic change.

We hope that you will draw from our Green Literacy model to create your own thematic units and that this will lead to shifts in perspectives and actions around stewardship of the planet.

We call our book The Green Literacy Handbook because, like a trusted guidebook for explorers, it’s designed to be a practical, flexible resource that supports your unique journey as an educator. A handbook, unlike a traditional textbook, invites you to chart your own course—whether that means diving into specific sections when the need arises, revisiting ideas as your teaching evolves, or using the reproducible “Green Literacy Thematic Unit Planning Template” (appendix A, page 193; also available at go.SolutionTree.com /literacy) to design your own Green Literacy unit. Because every teacher has their own experiences, interests, and classroom dynamics, this handbook honors those differences, offering tools and insights to meet you where you are and help you on your way.

We envision you, whether as an individual or as part of a teaching team, returning to these pages time and again, much like a gardener references a manual to cultivate a thriving landscape. Teaching Green Literacy is challenging yet deeply rewarding, and this handbook is here to nurture your growth, helping you expand your perspective, deepen your skills, and empower young people to critically engage with the world around them. That’s why the book’s introduction advises you on how to use this handbook—to ensure this resource feels approachable and adaptable to your needs.

Finally, we thank our teachers, past, present, and future, who work to protect our natural world. We thank them for engaging in practices within this handbook so that young people can think critically and have dialogues in their communities. We are grateful for compassionate teachers who guide young people so that community and inquiry arise, making way for empowering acts of environmental stewardship. Our young people are the gatekeepers of our living world, so we offer you, their teachers, practices to help them engage in environmental conversations that will be at the heart of their adult lives.

INTRODUCTION

How to Use The Green Literacy Handbook

We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place— or not to bother.

—JANE GOODALL

Welcome to The Green Literacy Handbook. You’ve found a go-to guide for deepening your practice of empowering young people to critically think, read, and write about urgent environmental issues.

Green Literacy is a teaching practice that develops in-depth thinking, dialoguing, and responding to our relationship with the environment, using multiple texts and digital media as catalysts. We created Green Literacy to help address the gaps between environmental education and its impact on young people’s thinking. We offer a theoretical framework and teaching process to help make meaning and spark critical conversations about urgent environmental issues.

The Green Literacy Handbook is for any educator who wants to facilitate opportunities for their students to take a stand for the natural world, advocate for sustainable and equitable environmental change, and champion systems thinking to solve complicated environmental issues like e-waste, energy overconsumption, pollution, and loss of biodiversity. The primary audience for The Green Literacy Handbook includes K–5 educators such as classroom teachers, curriculum developers, program directors for nature-based community centers

or museums, outdoor educators, and homeschooling parents who are passionate about integrating environmental awareness into their various curricula.

Your commitment to empowering young people surely predates holding your copy of The Green Literacy Handbook. We know the handbook may not be the beginning of your pursuit. We offer it as a companion to the important work you are already doing. We see you, the teacher, standing at the crossroads with us. Together, we mark our stance as a place where education meets the Earth, showing others that becoming environmentally conscious is our way forward if we want to live in a viable and sustainable future. Whether you are a classroom teacher in traditional or nontraditional spaces, a homeschooler, a community organizer, a college professor, a steward of nature, or an advocate for critical thinking, we acknowledge you for your time, energy, heart, and resources you’ve poured into helping young people face complicated environmental hurdles with resilience. What you do matters—and what we do together transforms.

HOW THE GREEN LITERACY HANDBOOK IS ORGANIZED

The Green Literacy Handbook is divided into three parts: (1) “Foundations of Green Literacy,” (2) “Teaching of Green Literacy,” and (3) “Support to Design Your Own Green Literacy Thematic Units.”

Part 1 contains two chapters. Chapter 1, “Green Literacy’s Theoretical Foundations,” offers descriptions and classroom vignettes that illustrate the theoretical foundations of Green Literacy, highlighting its connection to critical pedagogy. This chapter introduces Green Literacy ideals, which are agreed-on values that a teacher and students collaboratively create on an environmental issue. Chapter 2, “Green Literacy’s Practical Foundations,” lays the groundwork for Green Literacy by focusing on five essential components organized into three phases that reflect the natural process of deeply engaging with an idea. The first phase, engage, emphasizes developing thematic questions and fostering critical thinking through commentary. The second phase, empower, focuses on curating Green Reads and Views (carefully selected books, articles, videos, and other media that explore human and animal relationships with the natural world) and selecting Green Literacy strategies using the three cycles of comprehension. The last phase, shift, guides students to develop Green Literacy ideals. We provide support for adopting the actions of these three phases through guided use of the Green Literacy Thematic Unit Planning Template.

Part 2 includes chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 3, “Creation of the Green Literacy Model,” chronicles our work with teachers in both long (yearlong) and shorter professional development sessions. Our model is rooted in our collaborative experiences, in which we work closely with teachers to explore, refine, and implement Green Literacy. The chapter includes rich examples centered on the thematic question, “How do you become an environmental leader?” It walks readers step by step through the process of developing a thematic question, curating Green Reads and Views, and applying the three cycles of comprehension with

Green Literacy strategies. The chapter provides guidance for cocreating Green Literacy ideals and offers a focus on K–2 learners, showcasing specific adaptations used by K–2 teachers.

In chapter 4, “Thematic Unit Design and Customization With Twelve Insights Into Green Literacy Teaching,” we reflect on how our conception of Green Literacy thematic units has evolved from what we created with teachers who participated in our Green Literacy professional development sessions, offering readers a sense of the variability of design for thematic units. We also present practical insights, strategies, and reflections to help teachers adapt Green Literacy to meet the diverse needs of their students. The chapters in part 2 collectively aim to empower you with the tools and confidence to seamlessly integrate Green Literacy into your teaching.

In part 3, we introduce and guide teachers through three thematic units, starting with personal connection and expanding to broader communal and global perspectives. We organize chapters 5, 6, and 7 based on the engage, empower, and shift phases initially introduced in chapter 2. Chapter 5, “How Landscapes Shape Us,” is the starting point, focusing on personal connections. This chapter explores how the landscapes around students shape their identities and how these connections—or the lack of them—affect their relationships with nature and their communities. Chapter 6, “How Extreme Weather Events Connect Our Communities,” transitions from personal to communal themes, examining the impacts of extreme weather events, the plight of weather refugees, and the effects of climate anxiety on young people. Finally, chapter 7, “How Systems Thinking Changes Our World,” brings students to explore how systems thinking can transform their understanding of interconnectedness and the power structures that sustain or disrupt ecological balance.

The chapters in part 3 offer thoughtful, intentional, and supportive units with suggestions and choices to show you how you might explore these big-picture environmental questions with your students. We include in each chapter completed segments of the thematic unit planning template (full completed templates for the part 3 units may be found at go.SolutionTree.com/literacy) along with commentary, a curated Green Reads list, suggested Green Literacy strategies, and space to develop Green Literacy ideals. While the units in chapters 5–7 are ready to use as they are, they are meant to be customizable to fit the unique needs of your students or your specific teaching context, or they can serve as inspiration to create something entirely new. To further support you in this process, the planning template can help you develop or customize a unit, guiding you to brainstorm and build your ideas through the Green Literacy process. The engage, empower, and shift phases include steps to develop a thematic question, foster your learning through commentary, curate Green Reads and Views, select Green Literacy strategies, and develop Green Literacy ideals. A blank planning template is available in appendix A (page 193). Completed examples in chapters 5–7 reflect a variety of teaching environments and perspectives.

In the epilogue, we emphasize professional development for teachers and school communities, such as through workshops and collaboration, while offering ways to embed Green Literacy into school culture with an eye toward future sustainable, student-led actions.

In The Green Literacy Handbook, we follow an arc of learning that builds from the personal to the global so that you may be aware of this as you plan for your classroom.

• We start with chapter 3’s question: “How do you become an environmental leader?” To inspire students with their unique and personal connections, we ask them to consider the question, “What can I do?”

• In chapter 5, the question, “How do landscapes shape us?” expands students’ awareness of the land around them.

• Chapter 6’s question, “How does extreme weather connect our communities?,” connects students to larger community contexts.

• Finally, chapter 7 asks, “How does systems thinking change our world?” to make students aware of how systems and environmental challenges and solutions interconnect in our world.

We have intentionally structured this progression—personal, communal, and then global—to reflect how people naturally develop care and responsibility for the environment (Reilly, 2021). We hope this helps you understand our reasoning for selecting these themes and see how they work together to guide students toward deeper environmental awareness and action.

Repeating Chapter Features

While The Green Literacy Handbook is divided into four thematic movements— foundations in part 1, teaching in part 2, design in part 3, and future steps in the epilogue— repeating features in chapters 1–7 help support you. They are as follows.

• Chapter Snapshot—What You’ll Explore: This feature at the start of each chapter gives you a quick, bullet-point reference to what the chapter is about and what it contains.

• Conclusion: Each chapter concludes with a recap of the chapter’s key concepts or central points.

• Teacher’s Corner: At the end of each chapter, we offer a reproducible space to journal, reflect, and consider the chapter’s learning through questions that can be used individually, in pairs, or in teams.

A Design for Flexibility

The Green Literacy Handbook is an at-your-fingertips reference that should be used as support. It is designed to be flexible, acknowledging that there are different ways and reasons to use it. This emboldens you as an educator to adapt the handbook to your unique teaching style and classroom needs.

As you peruse The Green Literacy Handbook, please keep in mind that there is no right way or wrong way to engage. Choose the chapter that might be best for you and your situation. Here, we do offer some guidance on where you might begin depending on your circumstances. Consider where you might be, and then start with the corresponding chapter.

• If you are a classroom teacher, preservice teacher, or member of a teaching team, you may want to start Green Literacy in the classroom and go to part 2, focusing on chapter 3. As quickly as you feel comfortable, you may then move into the Green Literacy thematic units (chapters 5, 6, and 7).

• If you are a college professor or graduate student interested in literature-based teaching methods or some other related class, you may begin with part 1, chapters 1 and 2.

• If you are a curriculum director or staff developer for Green Literacy, you may want to ground yourself in theory by starting in part 1, chapter 2, but move quickly into part 2 with a focus on chapter 3.

• If you are a homeschooler, you might want to speed-read the entire book and then decide which Green Literacy thematic unit to focus on.

• If you work as an environmental community organizer at a nature center and want to begin designing your own thematic units, you may consider starting with chapter 5.

• If you work with refugees or newcomers to your country, you may consider starting with chapter 6.

• If you work in a STEM or STEAM school, you may consider beginning with chapter 7.

TRANSFORMATIVE RIPPLES

However you choose to engage with The Green Literacy Handbook, we ask you to hold this close: All good—and green—things take time and space to grow. Rest in that truth, for it is within that patience that your insights will deepen, empowering your students to take a critical stance on the pressing environmental issues we face. We often yearn for success, for change to come swiftly, but like systems thinking, it requires persistence and grace. As you move through these chapters, be gentle with yourself and your students. Trust that in time, your students will find their voices, becoming able to speak critically and thoughtfully about environmental issues.

Nelson Mandela (1990), one of our most enduring lights of education and freedom, once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” His words resonate with us, echoing our belief in the transformative power of education. In the context of Green Literacy, each lesson holds the potential to ripple outward, contributing to a future that is sustainable and just for all living things.

May your path through Green Literacy be one of discovery and growth for you and your students alike.

PART 1

FOUNDATIONS OF GREEN LITERACY

In part 1, “Foundations of Green Literacy,” we lay the groundwork for understanding and implementing Green Literacy. These foundations offer you the essential support and structure needed to cultivate environmental awareness and critical thinking in your students. We establish strong theoretical and practical underpinnings to create fertile ground for seminal discussions, creative exploration, and actionable learning about pressing environmental issues.

Part 1 equips you with both the conceptual clarity and the actionable strategies needed to transform Green Literacy into a dynamic and impactful force in your classroom. With these foundations in place, you’ll be ready to move into part 2, where we’ll guide you step by step through implementing Green Literacy thematic units using real-world examples and collaborative strategies.

In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught. —BABA DIOUM

CHAPTER 1

Green Literacy’s Theoretical Foundations

This chapter explores the underlying theories and principles that form the basis of Green Literacy. Drawing inspiration from critical pedagogy and other educational frameworks, this chapter provides a theoretical lens for understanding how Green Literacy empowers educators and students to critically engage with environmental issues.

UNDERSTAND THE GREEN LITERACY FRAMEWORK

Green Literacy teaches young people to understand and engage with environmental issues through critical thinking, reading, writing, discussion, and, in time, the possibility of action. It helps young people see how ecological systems connect to their own lives and empowers them to take steps toward sustainability.

Green Literacy also develops in young people the ability to critically analyze power dynamics, particularly as they pertain to environmental issues. As we noted previously, Green Literacy builds on critical pedagogy by encouraging students to question dominant ideas,

Chapter Snapshot— What You’ll Explore

In this chapter, we share with you how to:

• Work from the shared premise of the Green Literacy framework’s four agreements, which provide for in-depth dialogues

• Develop Green Literacy ideals—a set of agreed-on, shared values about the environment and our interactions with it

• Engage in the three cycles of comprehension, which move readers from literal criteria to supporting criteria and to critical thinking, including systems thinking about environmental issues within texts or digital media

• Incorporate read-alouds, silent reads, and digital media as springboards to critical conversations about environmental stewardship

• Create in-depth Green Literacy dialogues supported by research

think critically, and take action. Just as critical pedagogy challenges traditional education, Green Literacy asks students to examine environmental myths, like the notion that natural resources are limitless, and connect what they learn to real-world solutions. As such, we consider Green Literacy a branch of critical pedagogy, sometimes called critical literacy, in which teachers encourage young people to consider power issues and think systematically. In the domain of Green Literacy, students and educators collaboratively probe into the societal forces shaping environmental policies and practices, fostering a critical consciousness toward ecological issues. Table 1.1 compares the specific key elements of critical literacy with Green Literacy.

Table 1.1: Critical Literacy and Green Literacy

Similarity

Focuses on power dynamics

Uses critical analysis

Ensures social justice and equity

Follows a learnercentric approach

Engages collaborative discussions

Engages with contemporary issues

Spurs advocacy and activism

Critical Literacy

Analyzes how language and media can perpetuate power imbalances

Encourages questioning the status quo and looking for underlying meanings in texts

Aims to reveal and challenge social inequalities

Centers on the learner’s perspective, encouraging them to relate texts to their own life

Promotes dialogue and understanding through group discussion and debate

Relates the skills of literacy to current real-world issues

Cultivates students’ abilities to advocate for societal change

Green Literacy

Considers that power dynamics affect environmental decision making and policies

Promotes critical examination of environmental information and how it’s presented

Addresses the intersection of environmental issues with social inequity

Places the student’s relationship with the environment at the heart of learning

Facilitates group conversations about collective solutions to environmental problems

Ties literacy to current and emerging ecological challenges

Encourages active participation in environmental advocacy

The Green Literacy framework, guided by the intentions of critical literacy, consists of four agreements that help create a classroom culture where you and your students can explore environmental topics, make personal connections, and take action. These agreements support you in making Green Literacy an active, significant part of teaching and learning, and they shape classroom interactions.

• Agreement 1: Background knowledge advances reading success (Freire, 1970)— Green Literacy students’ knowledge of the world, especially power relationships, advances their comprehension skills. These students consider a depth of meaning and the significance of ecosocial context on themes that matter.

• Agreement 2: Generating themes from personal connections to various texts and other media is critical—Green Literacy students generate environmental themes from personal connections to books and digital media to promote critical discussions that examine dominant myths. For example, a student who has experienced a clean water shortage in their community might therefore question the idea that natural resources are limitless. Another student might reflect on the use of oil in their daily life—like fuel for cars or plastic manufacturing—and realize that oil is a finite resource that will eventually run out. These personal connections can spark valuable discussions about the importance of conserving resources and the global impact of relying on limited natural resources. With real and relatable examples, students can better understand why the idea of limitless resources isn’t true and think critically about how to address these challenges. Discussions about generative themes in Green Literacy promote students’ holding of many perspectives, coming up with the whole story rather than fragments.

• Agreement 3: Facilitating an open and nonauthoritarian stance allows for sharing of power and responsibility (Shannon, 1990)—Green Literacy students share power and responsibility with the Green Literacy teacher. These students exchange ideas and opinions, which fuels more expressions and ultimately leads the class to pursue their ideas for classroom or school projects and activities. The Green Literacy student takes initiative within constraints of time, resources, school policy, and common sense.

• Agreement 4: Questioning power relationships opens awareness to enlarge perspective (Shor, 1992)—Green Literacy students and teachers realize that society comprises contending forces and interests. These students and teachers advance questions to examine characters’ and authors’ viewpoints, which leads to analysis of which voices are present or excluded, whose perspective is credible, who has power in the situation, and what that power entails (that is, skills and competence, physical strength, money, or position).

We designed the agreements as a framework to nurture a rich educational environment where both you and your students can explore the complexities of environmental issues. When you adhere to these tenets, the learning space becomes a dynamic arena for examining ecological issues, and it encourages your students to think critically and engage fully as they dissect and discuss the facets of environmental care and ethics. The four agreements support the process and practice of Green Literacy teaching that then develop in-depth thinking, dialoguing, and responding to our relationship with the environment using multiple texts and digital media as catalysts. While we have delineated process and practice into separate chapters (chapter 1 and chapter 2) for clarity and focus, we recognize that they are intrinsically interwoven, with each element enriching and informing the other within the learning journey.

DEVELOP GREEN LITERACY IDEALS

Green Literacy ideals are a set of agreed-on, shared values developed through teacher and student collaboration and consensus on an environmental issue. These values emerge when you and your students engage in meaningful dialogue, reflect on your experiences, and work together to address environmental issues.

We developed our list of Green Literacy ideals through our own process of collaboration and consensus as authors when developing this handbook. By reflecting on our shared experiences and diverse perspectives, we identified the following Green Literacy ideals.

• We believe humans are interdependent and interconnected with other animals and plants on the Earth.

• We believe humans must protect nature’s diversity, including human nature.

• We believe individual species of animals and plants need a suitable ecological system large enough to survive and thrive.

• Natural resources need to be used carefully and wisely, allowing room for the commons and circular economies.

• We believe in solving problems systematically.

As you develop Green Literacy ideals with your students, the process unfolds as a structured and evolving journey (Vasquez, Tate, & Harste, 2013). It often begins with introducing critical concepts related to environmental issues and laying the groundwork for deeper exploration. Students then engage in collaborative brainstorming sessions, capturing their personal and collective ideals. This collaborative phase typically progresses from paired discussions (using a strategy such as think-pair-share) to small-group discussions and eventually to larger group discussions, encouraging students to explore multiple perspectives and refine their thoughts (Green, 2012). Together, you and your students can draft, display, and discuss the ideals to ensure they remain a central focus in your classroom and serve as a living guide for ongoing learning. For example, a third-grade class learning about the decline of pollinators might agree on shared values like recognizing that every living being has a role in nature, understanding that small actions can support ecosystems, and emphasizing the importance of working together to nurture the environment. A fourthgrade class addressing plastic waste could prioritize values such as making mindful choices about consumption, taking responsibility for reducing waste, and fostering cleaner, healthier spaces for all living things. These agreed-on, shared values are Green Literacy ideals, and the collaborative process to reach them helps your students understand environmental challenges and motivates them to work collectively and take meaningful action, fostering critical thinking and teamwork skills.

Reflection is a critical component of the Green Literacy ideals process; it helps students relate their ideals to their personal lives and broader community engagement (Marcinkowski, 2010). This reflective practice energizes students to take a stand on environmental and social justice issues to drive meaningful change (UNESCO, 1977).

Importantly, the process is dynamic—Green Literacy ideals are revisited and revised over time to incorporate new insights and experiences and to ensure they remain relevant and actionable. This cycle often extends beyond the classroom, as students share their experiences and projects with the broader community, reinforcing their commitment to realworld environmental action.

As you guide your students in your classroom, it’s essential to observe patterns and shifts in their thinking as they grapple with environmental issues. For instance, students may initially assume all neighborhoods are as safe as their own. After reading books like No Bad News by Kenneth Cole (2001), they may realize that safety is not universal and begin to question how everyone can have access to safe neighborhoods. Through discussions, students might arrive at the shared value that “everyone deserves a safe neighborhood,” which becomes a Green Literacy ideal. This example illustrates how introducing diverse perspectives can lead to significant shifts in understanding and the development of shared values (Vasquez et al., 2013).

While you and your students create and display Green Literacy ideals in the classroom, you’ll likely notice stronger student buy-in and an enhanced ability to articulate these ideals in their thinking. It’s crucial to remain open to revising these ideals as new insights emerge. We want to emphasize that reaching a critical stance takes time, practice, and opportunities to wrestle with ideas and values (Green, 2012). With your guidance, your students will navigate these complexities, evolving their opinions and values as they read, view, and dialogue about environmental and social justice issues. At times, competing ideas may initially seem equally valid. Over time, some perspectives will prove more robust or explanatory, leading your students to refine their understanding and adopt more nuanced views (Marcinkowski, 2010).

While the time commitment required to develop and revise Green Literacy ideals can be substantial, it is time well spent. An approach that includes investigating and balancing multiple perspectives leads to the creation of substantive, thoughtful ideals and discourages easy, oversimplified answers to complex problems. Fostering this reflective and iterative process helps your students build a deeper understanding of environmental and social justice issues, and it uplifts them to become thoughtful, engaged citizens prepared to address the challenges of their world. In chapter 2 (page 31), we further explore the development of Green Literacy ideals with your students.

The following vignette about Patty, a teacher who participated in a professional development project we led, and her second-grade students offers a nuanced look at how the process of developing Green Literacy ideals might unfold in practice. It highlights the open-ended and adaptable nature of the journey, showing how each class brings its unique insights, challenges, and opportunities to the creation of meaningful Green Literacy ideals.

S

econd-grade teacher Patty chooses to read the picture book Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker (1988) with a class of Somali English learners. In Baker’s book, a boy and his father explore a primeval forest threatened

by commercial development. The father journeys with his son to a remote island that is reached by boat. The boy begins to investigate the forest by following a creek as it winds through the trees; he observes many trees, plants, and animals that all peacefully coexist within the forest. When the boy returns, his father is resting by a fire, cooking a freshly caught fish for their evening meal. In the last pages, the boy and his father build a sandcastle by the shore. A mirage of a hotel-like resort is partially drawn on the landscape, prompting the reader to consider the future of the primeval forest—a natural resource for the community and a special place for father and son.

After reading the book aloud, Patty points to one page where it says, “My father says there has been a forest there for over a hundred million years” (Baker, 1987, p. 5).

“That sure is a long time this forest has been standing,” Patty says. “I want to tell you a word that means a very old forest such as this; it is primeval . Let’s write it here on our whiteboard.”

Patty continues, asking, “What do you think the author wants us to consider when the boy asks his father, ‘But will the forest still be here when we come back’?” (Baker, 1987, p. 28).

Maahir raises his hand. “People cut trees to build hotels and parks. Maybe when they come back, it will be gone. I hope it’s not gone.”

“Why do you hope the forest is not gone?” Patty prods.

“There would be no place for them to go,” Maahir answers. “And that’s sad.”

“Look!” Amir says, pointing to the illustration of the mirage at the edge of the page. “What is that?”

“A hotel,” Marie says. “And in hotels, you can have a job.”

“My mother says people make a lot of money when they build big buildings,” Dhuuxo says.

“But if more buildings are builded, can the boy and his father get to come back there to camp?” wonders Maahir.

“Good question,” Patty says. “Do we all need a place in nature to go as the boy and his father do?”

Several students agree and then speak about their special nature places.

“I like to play on the beach.”

“My auntie brings me to the park where I can climb a tree.”

At the end of the class discussion, Patty writes two sentences on the board: “We need jobs” and “We need a special place in nature.” The students then write about those two contrasting ideas. Many of the students write about their special nature places. A few write about their fathers’ and mothers’ jobs. A couple of students attempt to find a solution between nature preservation and economic growth.

Fartuum suggests, “We can have jobs at the beach and enjoy being on the beach doing our jobs.”

“Good work! Do you think we should make a Green Literacy ideal about special places in nature?” Patty asks. “What should we say?”

Several students hesitate and wait for more cues from Patty.

“Let’s see,” Patty says, walking to the classroom’s displayed Green Literacy ideals. “We already believe ‘Everyone should respect nature. We believe we are all connected to all living things.’ What can we add?”

“How about ‘We believe everyone should have a special place to go to in nature’?” Amir says.

In the preceding example, the students dialogued about a dilemma that many of us likely feel or have felt. Each student voiced the desire for material comfort, even luxury, yet at the same time, they wanted special places to go in nature (indeed, special places in nature may themselves offer people comfort and a kind of luxury). Though children and adults want to be materially secure, many want to protect and preserve the natural environment.

The vignette of these second graders and their teacher demonstrates engagement with the Green Literacy framework in four ways.

1. The teacher understood that social relationships increase students’ ability to read words; for example, Patty focused on the meaning of the word primeval (Agreement 1)

2. The students and their teacher generated ideas from the connections they made to the book—for example, the students’ ideas about the need for jobs and the need for unique places in nature. (Agreement 2)

3. The students worked with the teacher as a facilitator; that is, the joint work unfolded in a nonauthoritarian manner. (Agreement 3)

4. The students and their teacher discussed and questioned power relationships. They covered how some people make a lot of money, which equals power, by building resort hotels in beautiful places of nature instead of preserving such places. (Agreement 4)

In sum, the vignette illustrates the Green Literacy framework in action, and the action within that framework leads to the creation of Green Literacy ideals. Through the construction of meaningful social interactions, connections to text, collaborative learning, and

critical questioning, Patty and her students engaged with environmental and social issues. This approach encouraged critical thinking, amplified student voices, and explored the complexities of balancing human needs with environmental preservation. Through these efforts, Patty and her students built both understanding and environmental awareness, and they began the process of creating guiding ideals.

Tips for Teachers to Create Green Literacy Ideals

• Choose relevant texts: Select books and digital media that address environmental themes and resonate with students’ experiences, like the texts we suggest throughout The Green Literacy Handbook, on our companion website (www.greenliteracy.org), and at go.SolutionTree.com/literacy

• Facilitate guided discussions: Lead conversations that help students articulate and reconcile complex ideas about urgent environmental issues. Ask open-ended questions that allow students to become aware of multiple perspectives.

• Encourage personal connections: Prompt students to relate the story to their own lives, which enhances their depth of understanding.

• Balance critical thinking and empathy: Help students explore practical solutions that reflect both critical thinking about development and empathy for natural spaces.

• Extend learning with writing: Ask students to express their thoughts in writing, which fosters literacy skills and personal expression.

• Develop classroom ideals collectively: Work with students to create and evolve class ideals based on discussions, ensuring the ideals are meaningful and jointly owned.

• Remain open to student ideas: Listen to students’ suggestions to foster a sense of agency and ownership over the learning process.

USE THE THREE CYCLES OF COMPREHENSION

The three cycles of comprehension is a system of comprehension we developed to explore concepts in texts and media. Cycle 1, simple comprehension, occurs when students retell or summarize the story, nonfiction text, or digital media, including when they make inferences about what the author wrote. Cycle 2, criteria comprehension, occurs when students support their thinking about the story, nonfiction text, or digital media with criteria either prompted by their teacher or thought of on their own. Cycle 3, perspective comprehension, occurs when students engage in the story, nonfiction text, or digital media in a way that involves exploring the social world and their relationship to it. This includes engaging with explicit and implicit perspectives, debating different sides of issues, and valuing and developing assumptions and beliefs that make sense to students. Perspective comprehension includes systems thinking—that is, thinking that concerns how one event is related to or caused by other events and how complex problems are solved. We advocate using the three cycles of comprehension to explore the ideas in texts and digital media within Green Literacy thematic units. Use of the three cycles of comprehension ultimately leads students

into critical thinking, reading, speaking, and writing. See figure 1.1 for a visual representation of how the three cycles of comprehension are interconnected and support one another in a nonhierarchical fashion, ultimately leading to the creation of Green Literacy ideals, which for us is an action in and of itself.

Figure 1.1: The three cycles of comprehension.

While one cycle of comprehension supports the next, as we all know, comprehension is a dynamic, fluid process where students can shift back and forth between different levels of understanding, hence the emphasis on nonhierarchical. The circle in the figure is whole, emphasizing that comprehension is not always linear. Your students may alternate between simple comprehension, such as identification of facts, and more complex forms, such as critical analysis or perspective taking, depending on the context and their cognitive engagement (Kintsch, 1998; van den Broek & Espin, 2012). This flexibility highlights the importance of fostering opportunities for your students to engage with texts at varying depths, which supports their ability to navigate and interpret meaning across multiple dimensions.

To honor the fluidity of comprehension, we use the word cycles because it reflects the natural back-and-forth movement of both learning and nature. In Green Literacy, cycles capture how ideas are revisited, refined, and built on over time, making the process dynamic and adaptable. Similarly, in nature, patterns like the water and carbon cycles demonstrate how things connect and repeat to create balance. Unlike layers, for example, which feel fixed, cycles highlight growth and change.

In the following sections, we discuss each cycle in greater detail.

Cycle 1: Simple Comprehension

In simple comprehension, the first cycle, your Green Literacy students focus on understanding the text—that is, they restate or summarize the story, including making inferences about what the author wrote. Your students identify literary devices used in a fiction or nonfiction book they are talking about, such as scene, character, plot, climax, and theme, as well as identify the text’s central idea and supporting details. In many comprehensionassessment schemes, simple comprehension is the beginning of the close reading needed for college and career readiness. In Green Literacy’s practice, simple comprehension focuses on understanding rather than agreement, since understanding what the author says does not require the reader’s agreement.

A study by Peggy Albers, Jerome C. Harste, Sarah Vander Zanden, and Carol Felderman (2008) illustrates simple comprehension and shows the needed ability to move from simple comprehension into the next two cycles of comprehension. Albers and colleagues (2008) found that preservice teachers and fifth graders are able to read and achieve simple comprehension but have little success at identifying the tacit messages encountered in consumer culture. Investigators showed both groups a Walmart ad that introduced a new Barbie clothing collection. The Walmart ad displayed three smiling girls dressed in various shades of pink confidently marching down a fashion runway. Barbie doll clothing and complementary accessories lined the margins of the ad. Both the preservice teachers and the fifth graders talked about fashion, which was what the designers of this ad portrayed. From a Green Literacy perspective, both the preservice teachers and the fifth graders reached simple comprehension of the ad, including making inferences about what the producers of the ad portrayed.

Neither group attempted to unpack the larger messages about a consumerist culture that the ad’s numerous elements connected and communicated to the viewer—namely that possessing material objects like a Barbie doll is associated with happiness and social standing. The fact that neither group went beyond simple comprehension leads us to consider how ingrained the messages of advertising and consumerist lifestyles are in citizens of wealthy countries—even at a young age (Albers et al., 2008). We advocate developing students’ awareness of how people’s habits maintain the systems that drastically endanger the world’s limited natural resource base. Our experience indicates that as you and your students work with the Green Literacy process, this kind of eco-awareness grows. This example shows the need to advance students from simple comprehension to the following two cycles of comprehension (criteria comprehension and perspective comprehension), which allow students to engage in critical and systemic thinking and create sustainable solutions to urgent environmental issues. It’s important to guide students, especially ones in grades K–5, through cycle 1 to help them understand the basics of a story or concept. These young students may need more support to grasp the fundamentals. Taking time to explore key ideas is essential. Once students have a solid foundation, moving into deeper exploration and critical thinking in the later cycles allows them to connect ideas, ask questions, and engage meaningfully with the material.

Following is a list of what simple comprehension does.

• Aids in understanding of text: Grasping and retelling the text, which include summarizing the narrative and making inferences about the author’s intentions, further understanding.

• Serves as a basis for close reading: Establishing simple comprehension forms the groundwork for the close reading skills essential for higher education and professional success.

• Focuses on comprehension over agreement: Emphasizing understanding of the author’s message doesn’t necessarily require concurrence from the reader.

Cycle 2: Criteria Comprehension

We define criteria comprehension as supporting one’s thinking about the story, nonfiction text, or digital media with criteria. Students support their ideas by drawing from their background knowledge and from the text or media they read or view.

Here, we look at a classic critical literacy study by Josephine Shotka (1960) to illustrate how criteria comprehension could work. Shotka, an educator and researcher, provides valuable insights in her work from 1960, offering a perspective rooted in critical pedagogy. Shotka asked first graders to consider two central questions: (1) What is a home? and (2) What is a community? Through a series of lessons, the students compared their home experiences with the experiences of children in their textbooks. They recognized similarities: The textbook children played with one another and attended school, and their families had people who helped them, such as doctors and mail carriers. The students pointed out some differences, such as the textbook children always looked clean and happy, and their houses were bigger and prettier than their own. Prompted to explain these distinctions, the students revealed the author and illustrator “couldn’t think of making the children look dirty” and they “[wanted] the pictures and the stories to be happy [because] children didn’t like sad stories” (Shotka, 1960, p. 301). Thus, when invited to read critically to support their thinking with criteria on how their lives differed from what they saw in the pictures, these students explained why authors and illustrators choose certain representations of the world. The first graders were asked to support their ideas or give criteria for them, engaging in what Green Literacy calls the second cycle of comprehension.

In fostering criteria comprehension, you, the teacher, encourage your students to substantiate their thoughts by integrating their own experiences with insights gleaned from texts or media. This process of correlating personal understanding with external information deepens their analytic skills and enriches their capacity to critically engage with content. It enables students to construct informed opinions, reinforcing the learning experience through the synthesis of personal and textual knowledge.

The skill of supporting ideas from texts read and media viewed is emphasized in many state standards and in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS); this skill is also emphasized in college coursework. This is how young people expand their schemas or knowledge.

Following is a list of what criteria comprehension does.

• Defines comprehension: Students back their interpretations of texts and digital media with specific, well-thought-out criteria.

• Includes sources of support: Students use both prior knowledge and specific information from texts or digital media to support their points.

• Activates knowledge expansion: Students develop schemas, broadening their cognitive frameworks.

Cycle 3: Perspective Comprehension

We define cycle 3, perspective comprehension, as engaging in the story, nonfiction text, or digital media in ways that allow students to explore the world and their relationship to

it. Perspective comprehension includes both explicit and implicit perspectives, characters debating different sides of issues, and the development of assumptions and beliefs that make sense to young people. Developing Green Literacy ideals can be part of this process of examining assumptions and beliefs.

Here, we offer an example that altered students’ focus, allowing them to enter perspective comprehension. In their study, critical pedagogy researchers Allan Luke, Barbara Comber, and Jennifer O’Brien (1996) describe a first-grade teacher who invited her class to analyze how catalogs promoting and selling Mother’s Day gifts portray mothers. These students examined the catalogs and interviewed each other using the following questions: How are the mothers in the catalogs like and different from other mothers? What mothers are not included in the catalogs? Where do children get the money to buy presents? and Why do the catalog producers go through all this trouble to ensure people know what is available? The teacher-directed dialogue led the young students to realize that their mothers of differing cultural and social-class perspectives were not represented in the catalogs. The students then interviewed their own mothers and other mothers in their community about what Mother’s Day meant to them. As a result, students revised their conceptions of Mother’s Day. They perceived that Mother’s Day was less about buying gifts and more about sharing time with or helping their mothers. In this way, they considered the social context of Mother’s Day by questioning mothers, and in doing so recognized the difference between media and real-life portrayals of Mother’s Day.

Thus, in this perspective comprehension example (Luke et al., 1996), the teacher initiated a discussion about the catalogs (the text). Then the students interviewed their own and others’ mothers. Their findings impelled them to perceive a point of view that contrasted with the perspective of mothers that the consumer catalogs portrayed. Investigating topics or issues with perspective comprehension is particularly important for young people to become invigorated to act on their beliefs. We include in the teaching of cycle 3 instances where young people and their teacher consider how they value , or see as ideal, certain characteristics of a text, character or person, or point of view. In the preceding example, the students realized that some mothers tend to value restful time and time together more than physical objects.

Since cycle 3 includes systems thinking, students may be guided to consider structural fixes that involve changes to a system to solve complex environmental issues.

Perspective comprehension proves advantageous for 21st century students because they must realize that each author presents a belief and wants readers to believe it. Critical literacy theorist Patrick Shannon (1995) advocates that educators develop a language of critique with their students to shift their thinking beyond commonplace understandings. One way to develop such a language of critique is by asking students to consider differing perspectives. Cognitive linguist George Lakoff’s (2005) work calls for a precise kind of language study that interrogates texts in terms of frames, or what linguist James Paul Gee (1996) calls cultural models. These frames position readers in specified ways and endow them with certain identities while reading and analyzing a text. Lakoff (2005) defines frames

as “mental structures that shape the way we see the world . . . the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act” (p. xv).

Thus, cycle 3 of Green Literacy, perspective comprehension, goes beyond having different opinions or recognizing different points of view. It involves the ability to coordinate multiple layers of complexity, including thinking systemically and determining a stance that is credible (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2012). A credible stance built by understanding of established knowledge brings new evidence to the issues at hand. From the perspective of comprehension, soldering connections with their lives and other texts intensifies students’ comprehension of the material and such correlations’ journey to opinions. From an academic perspective, knowledge claims must stand up to review by peers and scrutiny by specialists in the subject.

Following is a list of what perspective comprehension does.

• Goes beyond the text: Students’ thinking goes deeper, using texts or media as gateways to explore broad ecosocial issues.

• Engages with content: Students actively engage with diverse perspectives and debates within the narrative.

• Values student perspectives: Students validate and cultivate their own assumptions and beliefs.

• Incorporates systems thinking: Students gain understanding of the interconnections between events, emphasizing the cause and effect within systems.

EMPLOY PERSPECTIVE COMPREHENSION TO INCLUDE SYSTEMS THINKING

In Green Literacy classrooms, K–5 and beyond, young people wrestle with the process of critical comprehension, supporting their thinking with evidence and considering multiple points of view and systems thinking. You and your students reflect on, clarify, articulate, and discuss an issue with intellectual humility, curiosity, and generosity. The goal is to expand both your (the teacher’s) and your students’ knowledge bases and critical thinking, not to protect preexisting opinions. You and your students can flourish intellectually by critically dialoguing at the start about your personal opinions, drawing on multiple perspectives, and conversing about them.

To facilitate deep conversations, multiple texts from many genres are needed. You and your students can examine various voices and points of view, which is unlikely to happen through reading only one text. Some texts are more profound or provocative than others. Learning through a critical stance includes using texts whose themes concern vital issues. Extending these ideas through discussion leads your students into an area of thinking called systems thinking, where action toward the environment is often made through structural fixes.

Green Literacy perceives a system as composed of interrelated parts that affect one another. Natural systems include plants and animals, ocean currents, the climate, the solar

system, and ecosystems. Designed systems include machines of all kinds, government agencies, and businesses. The word system then refers to many disparate factors that affect each other’s outcomes. Environmentalists apply systems thinking by viewing a “problem” as part of an overall system, rather than analyzing specific parts, outcomes, or events. You will find that systems thinking and determination of structural fixes are parts of the Green Literacy process. In chapter 7 (page 159), teachers can involve students in systemic ways by thinking about how much “stuff” we have and what we do with it.

When young people work with Green Literacy, they quickly realize that environmental challenges are complex and multifaceted. There are no easy solutions to fix issues such as global warming, dependence on fossil fuels, deforestation, bioengineered foods, air pollution, and more without considering the human factor and without realizing such issues are interconnected. We begin to examine how we interact both advantageously and adversely with the environment under established systems of law, education, government, medicine, family, and religion. When systemic changes are enacted over time, we come to understand they can be sustainable. Thomas A. Heberlein (2012) writes in Navigating Environmental Attitudes that connecting environmental problems with their complexities and structural fixes is most likely to offer sustainable solutions because the changes are systemic and often address cognitive and technological aspects. In effect, these problems demand a reworking of an entire system, including people’s attitudes.

You and your students will need time to absorb and understand how systemic changes or structural fixes can be helpful. One example we highlight is the institution of corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards in 1975 following the Arab oil embargo, which were then extended by Congress in 2006, increased in 2011, and extended to 2025. The CAFE standards dictate that automakers must build cars and light trucks with higher gas mileages—that is, they can drive farther using less gas. Since cars built under these standards burn less gas, they put less global warming pollution into the air. Having U.S. car manufacturers build cars within the CAFE standards is systemic change because this affects every car owner within the United States and thus has a massive effect on the amount of global warming pollution that the United States produces. Systemic changes usually require support from and decisions made by gatekeepers—in this case, Congress and the president. As the example of raising the CAFE standards shows, systemic changes often involve political will—and Green Literacy has your students consider power relationships concerning environmental issues that may lead to creating political will. A more recent example is support of electric cars to move us away from fossil-fuel use.

In summary, the three cycles of comprehension—simple, criteria, and perspective—work together to build young people’s engagement in systems thinking and ultimately environmental awareness. Teachers move students from understanding specific texts and digital media they, the teachers, have chosen to analyzing them and connecting them to real-world environmental issues. This cycle will support you and your students in articulating critical stances and later developing Green Literacy ideals.

In the following vignette, we’ll look at how David and his fifth-grade students enact the comprehension cycle, using perspective comprehension especially, to reach systems

thinking, which leads to their creation of new Green Literacy ideals. We offer this vignette to demonstrate, in tandem with our previous vignette example, the progression and depth of thinking, talking, and responding that students display when the Green Literacy framework and the three cycles of comprehension are incorporated into classroom discussions at differing grade levels. In the previous vignette, Patty and her second-grade students understand and use the three cycles of comprehension. While teachers of this age group may not explicitly teach the cycles to their students, they focus on building foundational comprehension skills in age-appropriate ways. In contrast, this vignette of a fifth-grade class highlights how older students and their teacher actively discuss and engage with the three cycles of comprehension, making them a central, explicit part of their learning process.

David is a Green Literacy teacher at a school where grades are looped. As their fourth-grade (and now their fifthgrade) teacher, he has given his students experience working in critical thinking groups. He uses the biography The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Kamkwamba & Mealer, 2009) with his students. In this remarkable biography, William Kamkwamba, a fourteen-year-old Malawian boy, engineers a windmill based on what he reads and learns in library books. The biography is divided into three parts: (1) village life of subsistence farming through child William’s eyes, (2) a famine and how William studies elementary physics textbooks in a local library and uses scrap materials to build his first windmill, and (3) the outside world’s discovery of William, which leads him to give a TED Talk and eventually go to Dartmouth College.

David has selected this biography to explain how technology can impact developing countries. He wants his students to consider how the internet enables people to get information they want and to connect with helpful people beyond the local village or city. William builds his first windmill with only the help of an old textbook and without international monetary support. After William makes friends at a TED conference, he is able to obtain the resources to go to school and eventually build more windmills for his village. David wants his students to dialogue about how the best international assistance may be rooted in local connections rather than top-down efforts through foreign governments.

As a prereading activity and an introduction to simple comprehension, students watch and respond to William Kamkwamba’s (2007) first TED Talk. They develop questions to use as they read the biography. Example student questions include the following.

• So, he didn’t go to school. Why not? Did he ever get to go to school?

• How did he make this windmill? Did anyone help him?

• Did he make the second windmill?

• How did the TED people help him?

• What happened to William after he did the first TED Talk?

These questions set the stage for close reading, which is cycle 1 (simple comprehension), moving to cycle 2 (criteria comprehension). David encourages his students to read while they work with partners to cite precisely what happens in the three parts of the book, and the partners develop a timeline of events for each part.

Afterward, David starts the first of three whole-group discussions. During the first of these discussions, he focuses on simple comprehension and stresses, “Let’s discuss what happened before we jump to the big ideas.” The students share their timelines and reach consensus as they make a master timeline for all three parts in the biography.

Once the students have read the entire book, they’ve worked on the timelines as partners, and David is sure all students have mastered cycle 1, he shows Kamkwamba’s (2009) second TED Talk, made two years after his first. Afterward, the students are impressed with William’s improved English and confidence. The class likes his final message: “I tried and I made it. . . . Trust yourself and believe.”

David then moves the students into cycle 2, where they find support in the text for their ideas. The partners combine to form foursomes of experts, and with their timelines, the groups each choose events in the book that demonstrate the value of or need for one of the following: science, technology (particularly the internet), or social justice. A week later, when the student groups present, the listeners use a spider map graphic organizer to link the different areas of expertise.

Moving into cycle 3 (perspective comprehension), David asks, “Can anyone share connections between the perspectives? And I dare you to refer to a page in the book.”

Ronald from the science group raises his hand and says, “I see social justice and science connected. Before William made the windmill, his family lived on subsistence farming and went through a terrible famine where they had one scoop of maize porridge daily. I take the dare. Page 74.”

Tamara says, “I see technology and activism connected. The activism came from people William met at the TED conference. Plus, after the village realized the windmill could bring them electricity,

and people from outside came to see the windmill, the whole village was proud of William’s accomplishment.”

“How was that activism?” David pushes.

“Well, William met activists from the U.S. at the TED conference, and they helped him get money by communicating through the internet for William’s ideas of getting electricity to others in his village, and for William and his friends to be able to go to school, things like that,” Tamara answers.

“Why do you think the village people changed their minds about William? How did their perspective change?” David says. “I double-dog dare you to connect the page to your idea.”

James, a shy student, offers, “They wanted to have electricity too. They saw good things can happen in the village and other villages. On page 251, William’s mother said when she was asked about having lights in her house from her son’s work, ‘We’re proud. We thought he was going mad.’”

Skillfully guiding the class toward creating Green Literacy ideals, David says to James, “Good thinking,” and to the class, “Remember when we talked about different kinds of power? The people William met at the TED community set up a website so that people could learn about William’s goals and give money to his projects if they wanted to. I think this could fit into our Green Literacy ideals. As we talk, let’s consider what thoughts we should write as our Green Literacy ideals.”

After a brief discussion about the classroom’s Green Literacy ideals, one student adds, “We believe fuel sources, especially alternative energy, should be shared with developing countries.”

“Wow,” says David. “This idea is a breakthrough Green Literacy ideal. Class, do you agree?” The classmates all raise their hands in agreement.

The discussion continues when Julie says, paraphrasing from the book, “I think that activism from the developing world can help African countries to have more wind and solar power. On page 214, William’s father says he enjoys his lights more than a city person because he paid nothing to the power company and has no power outages like people in the city. So maybe helping small communities in Africa make windmills for their town like William did might be better than everybody getting electricity from one big giant power plant like how we do here in Chicago.”

“Yeah,” adds Tamara. “Remember what happened to William’s town when the grain supplies were sold off by the president’s friends? Most people starved, and only a few people had grain to eat.”

“So,” says Michael, changing the subject, “wind and solar power are called alternative sources of energy because they are not traditional sources of energy, which are mostly from fossil fuels like coal and oil.”

“Good use of words, Michael,” David says. “ Alternative energy is a term on our Green Literacy word wall.”

David refers back to what Julie said earlier. “Julie and class, I like our discussion about local forms of energy and how they helped William’s town grow, rather than having big companies or governments come in and take over the energy supply. Maybe this idea might be turned into one of our Green Literacy ideals. What do you think, class? Do we believe that local energy sources like wind and solar are tools to bring energy with some control over it for local people? Is this idea important enough to be one of our Green Literacy ideals?”

After more discussion, the class agrees, and David places this Green Literacy ideal on the list on their wall: “Small-scale, local alternative energy sources are extremely helpful to small villages in developing countries because they can acquire them more easily than large-scale energy sources.”

Before the bell rings, Ronald asks, “What can we do here in Chicago? We’ve got electricity and rarely have power outages. What can we do to be like William?”

Looking at this vignette through the lens of the Green Literacy framework and its four agreements, you can see that the young people understood social relationships as they increased their ability to read words. For example, displaying alternative energy on the class word wall made the concept part of the community’s thinking and reasoning together. Second, the students generated ideas from the connections they made between the book and their values pertaining to science, technology, and social justice. Third, they collaborated with David, a facilitator who worked with his class in a nonauthoritarian manner. Fourth, they discussed and questioned power relationships—in this case, the power William had with his persistence and skill in making a windmill even though his fellow villagers sneered at him and he had few resources. Also, the students discussed the power of the people William met at the TED conference to use the internet to make his dreams come true—that is, William wanted his family and villagers to be more connected to others and have more resources, particularly to be able to go to school.

David supported his students’ thinking by progressing them through the three cycles of comprehension. The students mastered cycle 1 (simple comprehension) when they first

determined what the author wrote through reading and working with partners to develop a timeline of what happened in each part of the biography. The students progressed into cycle 2 (criteria comprehension) when they defended their ideas with information in the text as they worked in expert groups, considering the value of or need for science, technology (particularly the internet), and social justice. We noted the complexity of thought and interpretation in cycle 3 (perspective comprehension) when the class articulated differing perspectives concerning alternative energy, particularly wind, in developing countries. Finally, David incorporated the Green Literacy process into his classroom so that students’ thinking and in-depth discussion concerned the whys and hows of alternative energy used in developing countries. In fact, the class came up with and agreed on two Green Literacy ideals.

As a way of summarizing what students do as they work through Green Literacy’s three cycles of comprehension, we developed the following characteristics of Green Literacy thinkers and readers in grades K–5, which we call comprehenders

• They interact or engage with certain books and digital media that function as springboards for vital discussions about environmental stewardship. These discussions probably would not occur otherwise, since environmental issues are complex, interconnected, and often cloaked in another problem.

• They increase their awareness of environmental and social justice unfairness and of their part in the system that perpetuates environmental and social justice unfairness.

• They appreciate that facts and points of view will be accumulated through reading, viewing, and discussing.

• They recognize that diverging sources of information reinforce certain facts and points of view, and thus, they actively apply how to check the credibility of sources.

• They respect that everyone has a right to their opinion; they value multiple perspectives on an environmental issue, supporting critical thinking.

• They realize how complex systems interact and ways to change them systemically, including the power dynamics needed to make systemic changes. They recognize how students can work with others to make needed changes.

As students build their skills as comprehenders, they naturally progress toward more meaningful discussions. In the following section, we share research-based strategies to help you create and support these in-depth discussions in your classroom.

CREATE IN-DEPTH GREEN LITERACY DISCUSSIONS

Green Literacy thematic units innovatively draw from research on read-aloud discussions that support critical thinking and reading comprehension. For example, interactive read-alouds have been shown to help children build deeper understanding by modeling inferential thinking, teaching vocabulary in context, and scaffolding comprehension skills (Wasik & Bond, 2001). Research highlights how engaging students in discussions during

read-alouds encourages critical analysis and interpretation of texts, making their reading experience more meaningful (Fisher, Frey, & Hattie, 2016). These strategies support the goals of Green Literacy by embedding analytic thinking into the exploration of environmental themes.

The Green Literacy teacher is a facilitator who applies the research to read-alouds, silent reads, and digital media discussions. To promote critical thinking, we suggest that you minimize giving your students directives and asking them single-answer questions. As the discussion progresses, you invigorate your students to respond to each other’s views, not to the teacher’s point of view. Finally, as you invite discussion, you and your students become aware that the common classroom pattern of teacher question, student answer, teacher evaluation (Cazden, 2001; Eeds & Wells, 1989; McGee, 1995) tends not to support critical response. Here are some strategies Green Literacy teachers use to enhance high-level comprehension discussions.

• They choose high-quality literature with complex stories and issues of humans’ impact on the environment that warrant critical discussion (Hoffman, Roser, & Battle, 1993; Keene & Zimmermann, 2007; Santoro, Chard, Howard, & Baker, 2008; Sipe, 1998).

• They preread the children’s literature or digital media they choose, as well as related commentaries, and consider thematic connections.

• They determine where in the text or digital media they should stop to talk, what strategies they should use as they read aloud to engage students in critical dialogue and response, and what suggestions they should utilize as models for future lessons.

• They read texts aloud at least twice to allow higher-level thinking to percolate among the class in the second read. In the first read, they make sure everyone is on the same page and knows what the author wrote—that is, Green Literacy’s simple comprehension (Dennis & Walter, 1995; Martinez & Roser, 1985; McGee & Schickedanz, 2007).

• They engage students in critical dialogue by returning to the idea that, “consciously or unconsciously, when writers write and artists create, they include certain values and perspectives on the world and exclude others” (Crafton, Brennan, & Silvers, 2007, p. 513). Also, they focus critical discussion on what determines “fair” and “unjust” in stories read and how situations could be changed (Vasquez, 2010).

• They advocate cooperative learning strategies such as think-pair-share or turnand-talk (Kagan, 1990; Keene & Zimmermann, 2007; Lyman, 1981) to provide each student a chance to explore their ideas on the issue at hand. This enriches the whole-group talk. When students simultaneously share ideas due to the excitement generated by the conversation, the teacher can refocus on the significant idea in the discussion by saying, “John and Jim, each of you take turns sharing what you said,” rather than controlling communication with raised hands (Hoffman, 2011, p. 188).

• They build on student responses by repeating and affirming confirmations, and when there is extensive agreement, they act as the devil’s advocate to voice alternative points of view that the young people don’t. In this way, the discussion focuses on the interpretive points related to the theme of the text. Green Literacy students build on each other’s ideas, rather than presenting unrelated topics (Hoffman, 2011).

CONCLUSION

Green Literacy, rooted in critical pedagogy, fortifies teachers and students to engage in meaningful, in-depth dialogues about urgent environmental issues through the lens of thematic, big-picture questions on environmental stewardship. These dialogues are guided by a framework of four foundational agreements that shape classroom interactions and create a collaborative environment where transformative ideas can flourish.

As a teacher, you have a pivotal role in cocreating Green Literacy ideals with your students. These ideals naturally arise through reflective conversations and shared experiences, and they influence how you and they act individually and collectively. This dynamic and evolving process places students’ voices, experiences, and critical thinking at the forefront, fostering a sense of ownership and engagement.

To support the development of these ideals, the three cycles of comprehension provide a practical, structured approach to deepen understanding and encourage exploration. The simple comprehension cycle helps students grasp the author’s core message to ensure foundational comprehension. The criteria comprehension cycle emphasizes the importance of supporting ideas with evidence, whether from texts or personal experiences, to reinforce critical thinking. The perspective comprehension cycle challenges students to consider diverse viewpoints and practice systems thinking, pushing them to see beyond immediate contexts. Together, these cycles offer a versatile approach that supports both structured learning and creative exploration, enabling students to connect ideas and think critically about complex issues.

At the heart of this chapter—and every chapter in The Green Literacy Handbook—is the principle of trust. We trust you, the teacher, because we are teachers ourselves. Decades of experience have taught us that no one knows your classroom or students better than you. Your ability to adapt strategies—whether through read-alouds, silent reading, or multimedia discussions—ensures that every student can meaningfully participate in and grow through the Green Literacy process. Your expertise is essential in creating a space where students recognize words and think critically, collaborate creatively, and develop as thoughtful stewards of our shared environment.

Now, consider how this chapter has impacted your learning as a teacher. We offer a dedicated space for you to do so in the following “Teacher’s Corner” reproducible tool (also available at go.SolutionTree.com/literacy). Whether you’re working on your own, with a teaching partner, or within a schoolwide learning network, after exploring chapter 1, we encourage you to reflect on what you’ve learned.

Teacher’s Corner

Here are some questions to support your reflection.

• Reflect on a meaningful personal experience in nature that has shaped your approach to teaching about the environment. How has that experience influenced your classroom?

• How did the vignettes from the chapter resonate with you, and why?

Here are prompts for journaling.

• Write about your process for teaching about nature or an environmentally related theme. How might Green Literacy ideals help enhance your process?

• What insights have you gleaned from the chapter that could transform the way you teach your students as you incorporate Green Literacy into your curriculum?

Here are discussion guidelines.

• Discuss the impact of personal nature experiences on your teaching. How can you and your colleagues share your stories to foster a deeper connection with the environment among your students?

• Share and discuss a section of vignette from the chapter that affirmed or made you rethink your teaching approach. What lessons can you draw from it?

The Green Literacy Handbook © 2026 Solution Tree Press • SolutionTree.com Visit go.SolutionTree.com/literacy to download this free reproducible.

PART 2

TEACHING OF GREEN LITERACY

People are the solution to the challenges facing our fabulous biodiversity on Earth.Young people are more supportive of caring for our natural world than any previous generation.

—JAMES DANOFF-BURG

CHAPTER 3

Creation of the Green Literacy Model

This chapter provides context for Green Literacy by showing how our professional development efforts, particularly a yearlong one in an urban setting, shaped the Green Literacy process and practice. We describe some of our engagements with teachers and include descriptions of how they developed and taught a thematic unit around the question, “How do you become an environmental leader?”

THE GREEN LITERACY MODEL DEVELOPS DURING

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

We led many professional development efforts as we developed Green Literacy in theory and practice. Over the years, we’ve guided a variety of Green Literacy programs, including a yearlong, grant-funded Green Literacy professional development initiative. This long experience, as well as shorter professional development sessions, helped us create what we now call the Green Literacy model. We share the context for the model to illustrate how working through complex environmental

Chapter Snapshot— What You’ll Explore

In this chapter, we share with you how to:

• Determine the context for Green Literacy professional development efforts

• Follow the steps used to develop a Green Literacy thematic unit

• Use the Green Literacy Thematic Unit Planning Template

• Understand the process used in deciding a thematic unit question

• Create commentaries and use them to launch discussions during professional development sessions

• Choose Green Reads and Views for the thematic unit

• Select teaching strategies to pair with their chosen Green Reads and Views

• Implement the thematic unit

• Create Green Literacy ideals

issues builds relationships between teachers and their school communities. Specifically, when teachers participate in Green Literacy professional development, their school contexts play a key role in how they implement Green Literacy in their classrooms.

In the context of our yearlong professional development experience, we engaged in biweekly sessions with grades 2–5 teachers who were teaching together in the same school and volunteered to partake in the professional development. The school was urban and multicultural, with many students supported by English as a second language (ESL) teachers.

At the beginning of the professional development, some teachers worked alone while other teachers often worked in pairs to develop lessons they taught in their classrooms. During professional development sessions, the teachers shared their teaching experiences; we reflected together. For example, we collaborated with the teachers on two single-book Green Literacy lessons using Common Ground by Molly Bang (1997) and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba (Kamkwamba & Mealer, 2009). We supply an example commentary for the first book at go.SolutionTree.com/literacy and a vignette on the second book on page 23.

In describing the development of the model, we focus on two teachers (composites of various teachers we worked with), whom we’ll call Maribel and Sarah. We share their responses to a precursor to the Green Literacy Thematic Unit Planning Template (chapter 2, page 34) and other responses so that you get a sense of how one might think through the Green Literacy process based on their experience.

Maribel and Sarah, Grade 5 Teachers at an Urban Public School

Maribel: I am a seasoned educator with over fifteen years of experience. I bring expertise in classroom management, differentiated instruction, and relationship building with diverse learners. I am excited to mentor and share insights while remaining open to fresh ideas.

Sarah: I am newly hired with less than five years of experience. I am eager to participate in Green Literacy professional development. I seek guidance from Maribel on navigating the school’s community and classroom dynamics.

Together, we co-plan lessons. We volunteered for the Green Literacy professional development because we want to build environmental awareness in our classroom and want more classroom library books about environmental topics.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR GREEN LITERACY IS COLLABORATIVE AND FLUID

Green Literacy addresses diversity and is designed to be tailored to unique contexts, interests, and learning needs. This flexibility was evident from the beginning of our work developing Green Literacy, and was and is a core part of Green Literacy professional development. As we worked with teachers in the yearlong professional development experience,

we focused on details—one book or media source at a time, for instance—and collaboratively moved to a cohesive vision, rather than attempting to apply a ready-made vision to all participants from the outset. This mode, while still in formation at the time of our professional development, exemplifies the importance with which Green Literacy holds all voices.

To provide pedagogical background knowledge and vocabulary, we often focused on the three cycles of comprehension and reading and writing strategies as well as drama strategies as we engaged with each Green Literacy read or view. Near the end of the professional development, as a culminating effort, we developed with the teachers what we now call the Green Literacy model, which includes the following steps, of which you are already aware: (1) develop your thematic question, (2) foster your thinking through commentary, (3) cultivate a list of Green Reads and Views, (4) select Green Literacy strategies, and (5) develop Green Literacy ideals. Our yearlong collaboration, and other shorter professional development work, provided profound engagement. We estimate a teacher independently teaching a similar thematic unit could complete the teaching process in two to four weeks. Shorter durations can also suffice to honor the Green Literacy values of holding all voices as important and allowing participating individuals time to evolve their own ideas and truly hear others’ ideas, particularly as we’ve streamlined the Green Literacy process in this book. In terms of preparation, we believe that prep time may vary depending on the teacher’s process. For example, we have seen teachers be inspired and create a unit in a day, while others may take a week. In general, we believe the prep process is three to four days.

In the following sections, we share a streamlined reconstruction of our work in each step, including examples of how students responded to lessons. This gives you a sense of how we developed the Green Literacy process and its inherent values, and it promotes thinking about what your own work may look like as you create Green Literacy learning experiences that speak to your students’ interests and needs, urgent environmental issues, and the time constraints in your school and teaching schedule.

Note: Maribel and Sarah, our example teachers, used a precursor to what is now the Green Literacy Thematic Unit Planning Template. Throughout this chapter, we reconstruct their responses and, at times, generalize how teachers in our professional development responded to the different steps.

Step 1: Teachers Develop the Thematic Question

In what is now step 1 of the Green Literacy process, Maribel and Sarah engaged with us, as did the other participating teachers, in a brainstorming discussion dedicated to what thematic question we would use to organize the thematic unit.

After this session, Maribel and Sarah responded to the questions the group developed during brainstorming and completed the process of selecting a thematic unit question. As you can see from Maribel and Sarah’s thought process, both Maribel and Sarah zeroed in on the question, “How do you become an environmental leader?”

Maribel and Sarah’s brainstorm follows.

• What issue that could lead to a big idea about the environment are you most passionate about exploring with your students?

• Maribel: I’m passionate about helping my students explore what makes someone an environmental leader. We’ve studied leadership in other units before, and now I’d like to take that foundation and connect it to the environment. It’s such a meaningful way to show them how leadership can create real change.

• Sarah: As someone new to teaching, I really care about helping my students figure out what it means to be an environmental hero. I think it’s so important for them to see that anyone, no matter where they come from, can make a difference for the planet. But honestly, I feel like we’re always telling the same stories about the same people, and it’s kind of boring. I want my students to hear different, more diverse stories—especially ones that reflect the world we live in now, not the same old stuff from years ago. I want my students to learn that heroes aren’t famous people— they’re individuals who take action for the planet, no matter how big or small.

• What current events or real-world examples resonate with you and can help bring environmental issues to life for your students?

• Maribel: I’m really worried that with all the problems with the climate and weather, my students might feel overwhelmed. I want to keep things hopeful. When I was a new teacher, I focused so much on teaching the facts, but over time, I’ve realized how important it is to also inspire hope. I think showing them realworld examples of people actively solving environmental issues could really make a difference. I want them to see that change is possible and that they can be part of making a difference too.

• Sarah: I think one of the biggest environmental issues we face is not realizing how powerful we can be when we work together. As someone from a generation that’s super connected online, I feel like we have so much potential to come together and make a difference, but sometimes, we don’t know how. I want my students to see that their voices matter and that, when we combine our efforts, we can really create change. I’m still figuring out the best way to teach this, but I’m excited to learn alongside them.

While brainstorming can definitely produce thought-rich results, you may ask at this point, “How do I prioritize when there are many good ideas or when I have more than one environmental issue I’d like to explore with my students?” Our answer would be this: Think about which one will create the most meaningful conversations and learning, and consider what your students already know about environmental issues and how your school community might respond to the topic. Think, too, about the ways your administration can support you as you teach this lesson. How can you shape your question so it encourages collaboration and reduces any challenges? What is your willingness to engage with the environmental issue?

Here is an example of how Maribel and Sarah engaged in this process of prioritization.

• Maribel: I’ve been teaching long enough to see that my students often know the basics about environmental issues, but they don’t always see how their actions connect to bigger solutions, and they don’t often think critically about them. I want to help them make those connections and show them they can make a real difference. I know the administration would back us. I see teaching environmental issues as learning facts and inspiring students to be leaders who take action for the planet.

• Sarah: Honestly, I feel like my students probably know some basics about environmental issues, like recycling or climate change, but I don’t think they’ve had the chance to connect what they know to their own lives or community. The great thing is I have Maribel on my team, so we can work together to make this really engaging for the students. Our admin is super supportive and would totally help us out, whether it’s with resources, planning, or getting the whole school involved in something like a project or event. I didn’t go to college to study environmental issues, so I know I’m a little nervous about figuring out what I need to know as a teacher before I share it with my students.

As you engage in a prioritization process like Maribel and Sarah’s, write your thematic question. Here are some sentence stems that might be useful.

• How can/do . . . ?

• What might . . . ?

In the following, Maribel and Sarah decide on their thematic question.

• Maribel: I suggested we focus on the question, “How can we become environmental leaders in our school and community?” because I know how important it is for students to see themselves as capable of making a difference. With my years of experience, I can help guide the lesson to show them how small, consistent actions can lead to big change. It’s a question that not only encourages collaboration but also gives students a sense of purpose.

• Sarah: I love the idea of asking, “How can we become environmental leaders in our school and community?” It feels super fresh and exciting, and I know it’s something that will totally click with our students. I want to bring in fun, hands-on ways to dive into this, like cool projects or interactive activities that show leadership in action. For me, this question makes the topic feel real and inspiring for today’s students—it’s something they can actually see themselves doing.

As you can tell from the way Maribel and Sarah thought and dialogued, they came together on the same thematic question, clarifying it by including the phrase “in our school and community” at the end. Cohesion in selecting and finalizing the thematic question in this professional development experience came from the teachers’ desire to use the same books and media in their Green Literacy work.

When you engage in this process using the thematic unit planning template, you may want to brainstorm with a colleague or on your own about how to complete the first section

around environmental leadership (or whatever your chosen theme is). Consider how your answers may be different from Maribel and Sarah’s.

Step 2: Teachers Foster Thinking Through Commentary

While the teachers in our yearlong Green Literacy professional development experience agreed that young people have the potential to be influential leaders in environmental activism, they saw their students as often needing to be empowered to take on these roles. They agreed that one way to empower their students was to involve them in critical thinking. They expressed that in order to facilitate critical thinking in their students, teachers would first have to reevaluate their own beliefs and ideas surrounding the question, “How do you become an environmental leader?”

During the professional development experience, we wrote the commentary for the thematic question the teachers developed. To do this, we researched the theme and continued talking with the teachers, gathering ideas for empowering students through critical thinking. The research and gathered ideas then framed our commentary, which we designed to support and foster the teachers’ thinking as they continued their work.

During our professional development sessions, we shared the commentary with teachers on a printed handout. When we presented our commentary to the teachers, our aim was to give them a concrete resource to reference as they planned and implemented their thematic units. We specifically created this commentary to provide a foundation for discussing how to incorporate narratives into lessons on environmental leadership. This commentary aligned with existing research on the use of narratives and role models in environmental education. For instance, in Childhood and Nature: Design Principles for Educators , David Sobel (2008) discusses how personal stories can inspire environmental action by connecting children to relatable experiences, fostering a sense of agency, and encouraging empathy toward the natural world.

We provided commentary on two topics.

1. Complexity of environmental issues and young people

2. The Green Literacy approach to personal narrative

We used the two commentary topics as points of departure for our professional development conversations after the teachers had read and reflected on them. We created the following commentary on the first topic—complexity of environmental issues and young people—due to the many questions that arose during discussions with teachers. The commentary for the second topic is available as a reproducible at go.SolutionTree.com /literacy.

We see environmental issues are complex, multilayered, and needing multiple perspectives in order to attain sustainable solutions. Many environmental challenges draw young people into hard dilemmas of determining solutions that may require sacrifices.

Many young people involved in environmental issues participate because they believe their actions can help address the degradation of the natural world. They often ask, “If I help and nothing changes, why should I care? If I work hard and create a viable solution, yet people in power ignore or belittle me, why should I try?” How do adults, people in power over young people, answer these questions? What message can society instill in young people so that they can discover answers, push back, and demand that the adult world pay attention to them? In many ways, the question, “Why should I try?” speaks to the reality that young people are not always invited into conversations. “Why should I try?” reflects the reality that young people are often left out of important conversations because adults sometimes overlook their ideas or don’t create space for their voices. When this happens, we miss out on their unique perspectives and the chance to help them feel empowered to take action and be part of meaningful solutions.

Through storytelling and teaching, tellers explain that humans must work together to sustain individual motivation for a project. Consider the advent of the skyscraper, the development of the internet, or the foundation of robotic surgery. These accomplishments cannot be attributed to one individual. Sure, the seed idea may belong to an individual, yet collectively, many people contributed to each of these achievements, and in turn, growth and movement evolved. We believe that young people may follow a leader and need to work as a group as environmental stewards. We believe effective change happens when we work collaboratively—while you might not see immediate results, your efforts continue and inspire others. For example, a group of students organizing a beach cleanup may not see lasting change that day. They may acknowledge their teamwork raises awareness and motivates others to care for the environment. Young people thrive as environmental stewards when they work together, turning small actions into lasting impact.

Environmental leaders, such as the ones we’ll highlight in this thematic unit, began by acting locally. They started where they lived and discovered a problem in their local world. This problem ignited in them the willingness to speak up, and in doing so, they became leaders. They received a wider audience and thus influenced people in their local community and beyond, and in this way, their efforts gained collective momentum.

Why do you think environmental solutions often begin at the local level? Additionally, why do you think environmental leaders tend to look beyond traditional approaches to problems and instead focus on creating solutions that strengthen community relationships while promoting earth stewardship?

While many commentaries in this handbook center on books and our analysis of them, we also offer commentary on ways to engage with an environmental issue without links

to books. Both approaches are beneficial. We see our commentary as a springboard for dialogue during the sessions.

We offered Maribel and Sarah the following questions, which are now part of the Green Literacy planning template. Here is how they responded.

• Whose voices or stories do you need to hear to understand this issue, and why are they important to you?

• Maribel: After years of teaching, I’ve realized that truly understanding environmental leadership requires listening to a variety of voices and stories. I want to hear from people who’ve been working on the ground for decades— activists, community leaders, and farmers or Indigenous groups—because their lived experiences show the real challenges and triumphs of environmental work. These stories are important to me because they add depth and authenticity to what I share with my students. I want my students to see the diversity of leadership and understand that everyone’s voice matters in solving these issues.

• Sarah: I am a newer teacher. I know I have so much to learn, and I think it’s so important to listen to voices that don’t always get the spotlight. I want to hear from diverse leaders—Indigenous activists, young changemakers, and communities directly affected by climate issues—because their stories are raw, real, and inspiring. Representation matters, and I want my students to see that leadership doesn’t look one way. These voices can show them that anyone, no matter where they’re from or what they’ve been through, can step up and make a difference.

• What unfair systems or problems do you want your students to think about when learning about this issue, and how can you help them ask questions and find ways to make things better?

• Maribel: I know how unfair systems keep some people on top while leaving others behind, and it drives me crazy. I don’t focus on environmental issues, mainly because I am not sure how. My own son, who’s disabled, has struggled with systems that aren’t built for everyone, and that’s shaped how I teach. I want my students to ask, “Who’s being left out, and why?” and to know they can challenge unfairness. If we’re not teaching them that, what’s the point?

• Sarah: As a younger African American teacher, it’s important to me that my students see leaders of all races, classes, and genders making a difference. Growing up, I didn’t see enough role models who looked like me, and I want my students to know leadership can come from anyone. I’ll ask them questions like, “Who benefits from this system, and who doesn’t?” to help them think critically and see how they can be part of the solution.

While creating commentaries is something you will come to do on your own as you design units, we provide commentaries in this chapter that we used during our professional development experience. Additionally, we encouraged the teachers to do research independently, and many of the participants did so.

If you decide to teach this unit on environmental leadership, you can use the planning template’s Foster Your Thinking Through Commentary section to brainstorm and then compare your commentary to how Maribel and Sarah responded. Your answer will depend on your teaching context.

Step 3: Teachers Curate Green Reads and Views

We supported the teachers in the professional development experience as they selected the following texts and digital media, which we now refer to in Green Literacy as Green Reads and Views. During the professional development sessions, we gave brief “book talks” or “view talks”—that is, quick oral reviews of books or films we thought would work in this thematic unit and align with exploration of the thematic question. Some of the teachers brought in books they thought would work with the theme and shared their own book talks.

From a longer list we developed, the teachers chose these books and digital media for the unit.

• Seeds of Change by Jen Cullerton Johnson (2010)

• A River Ran Wild: An Environmental History by Lynne Cherry (1992)

• Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman (1997)

• Jane’s Journey, a short film by Lorenz Knauer (2011)

• An excerpt from No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg (2021)

Since the teachers appreciated and learned from reading, reflecting on, and dialoguing about the topic commentaries we wrote, we also wrote a commentary based on each book or view the group chose to include in the thematic teaching unit. We followed a similar process with the commentaries on specific books and views as we did with the overall commentaries. The teachers found the background we provided in each read or view commentary supportive as they worked with their students on how to teach the specific Green Reads and Views in this thematic unit.

Here, as with the previous steps in the process, you can use the planning template to frame your selection of Green Reads and Views for your teaching about environmental leadership. A way to do this is to brainstorm a list of possible Green Reads and Views in the template space, first looking over the list the teachers used and then adding to it through your own knowledge of books and media as well as through internet research. Notice the template asks you to write down key insights for each selection, which will push you to think about all possible Green Reads and Views to use in the unit. After you have created this longer list, you need to prioritize which books and media would work in your specific teaching situation.

Step 4: Teachers Select and Use Green Literacy Strategies in the Thematic Unit

We supported the teachers in the professional development experience as they carefully chose strategies to facilitate their students’ thinking, dialoguing, and learning about environmental leadership toward taking a critical stance and ultimately creating sustainable action to help preserve our natural world.

To choose strategies, we collaborated on how the specific books and digital media the teachers chose could pair with strategies we drew from best practices in literacy education. For example, we decided to pair the Free Response strategy (inviting students to respond in an open-ended way to teacher-chosen places as the teacher reads the book aloud) with A River Ran Wild. As we read aloud, we paused at places in the text and asked the teachers to write what they were thinking. Then we asked them to share their thoughts. We dialogued about the environmental ideas that arose from reading A River Ran Wild as well as their experience using Free Response to get a sense of teaching and learning with this strategy. Recall the three cycles of comprehension (chapter 1, page 9). Since the three cycles of comprehension are essential to Green Literacy learning, we had the teachers think out loud about how different strategies might support their students as they moved through simple comprehension, criteria comprehension, and perspective comprehension. We settled on these strategies as useful for each type of comprehension.

• Strategies toward simple comprehension: As the teachers focused on the following strategies aimed at developing simple comprehension, we used these organizing questions: “What does the author say about becoming an environmental leader?” and “How do you become an environmental leader?” As you will recall, simple comprehension occurs when students retell or summarize the story, nonfiction text, or digital media, including making inferences about what the author wrote. The teachers became familiar with this terminology in the previous professional development sessions.

• Free Response—When using the Free Response strategy, the teacher invites students to answer open-ended questions about environmental topics, which promote critical thinking and personal expression. Students write their thoughts in short form at specific stopping points in the text that the teacher chooses, connecting their background knowledge of the topic to the reading. The classroom dialogue leads students to be able to articulate and comment on what the author says about becoming an environmental leader.

• Dear Agony Letter—The Dear Agony Letter strategy involves having students choose a character in the text that has a problem and writing from the character’s point of view. This reading and writing strategy aids students in understanding what happens in the text as well as encourages them to see different perspectives.

• Develop a Timeline—Students create timelines of important environmental events. This helps them see how events connect and have an impact over time. They visualize and gain a better understanding of environmental progress.

• Strategies toward criteria comprehension: During the professional development, teachers selected these strategies to encourage critical thinking and facilitate meaningful classroom discussions toward criteria comprehension. As you may recall, criteria comprehension occurs when students support their thinking about the story, nonfiction text, or digital media with criteria either prompted by the teacher or established from their own thinking. We used the guiding question, “How can you support your ideas of how to become an environmental leader by drawing from the text?”

• Dear Character Letter—The Dear Character Letter strategy has students write letters to a character from a story or a real-life environmental leader. This exercise helps them explore the person’s motivations, decisions, and actions related to environmental issues.

• Think-Pair-Share—Students are asked to first think on their own about a prompt related to the text; then, they discuss their ideas with a partner, and finally, they share their thoughts with the larger group. This collaborative approach encourages all students’ participation and enhances their understanding through peer interaction.

• Strategies toward perspective comprehension: We guided the teachers as they chose the strategies toward perspective comprehension. Recall that perspective comprehension includes systems thinking and occurs when students engage in the story, nonfiction text, or digital media so it becomes less an end than a doorway through which they explore the social world and their relationship to it. This incorporates explicit and implicit perspectives, characters debating different sides of issues, and the valuing and development of assumptions and beliefs that make sense to young people. The teachers considered the following questions: “Can you, as an environmental leader, see perspectives other than your own?” and “Can you consider systems thinking?” The following strategies help students see different viewpoints and think about how systems work in environmental issues. During professional development, we guided the teachers as they chose these strategies that would lead classroom discussions, encourage empathy and big-picture thinking, and build critical and comprehensive understanding.

• Compare Behaviors—With this strategy, students examine the attitudes and behaviors of different groups of people, exploring how the different groups view and respond to environmental issues. This helps them understand diverse perspectives and the reasons behind various actions.

• Engagement—The Engagement strategy (Long & Gove, 2004) has two parts: (1) finding the voices and (2) engaging through creating a drama. Students explore different perspectives on environmental issues by considering

what different stakeholders in texts would say to each other. Then they use the voices they have considered to create an impromptu drama. Through this experience, students often begin to realize the social complexity of environmental issues.

• Examining Preachiness of Language—Students in small groups rate two different books using the following rating scale of 1–5; they provide reasons for their ratings and support their ideas with evidence from the text. For this strategy, we suggest using No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference and another book of the students’ choice.

▶ 1 = Informative, interesting, and not preachy at all

▶ 2 = A little preachy, but I don’t really notice it

▶ 3 = Somewhat preachy; only bothers me a bit

▶ 4 = Fairly preachy, and it feels rude

▶ 5 = Really gets on my nerves, preaching or lecturing to me; seems rude to me

Follow this with a whole-class discussion where you support students when they have differing opinions about the appropriate “preachiness” of language, considering who they are talking to and in what context.

• Compare and Contrast Texts—This strategy helps students explore how different texts handle similar ideas; they look at what the authors are trying to say, how their messages are alike, and how they’re different. It’s a great way to encourage critical thinking and help students see topics from multiple perspectives.

After selecting strategies, the grades 2–5 teachers in the professional development sessions collectively chose to begin with Seeds of Change, followed by A River Ran Wild, Seedfolks, and the short film Jane’s Journey, and ending with the excerpts from No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. Because all the teachers used the same books in their teaching, they were able to debrief with one another and us as they engaged their students in the thematic unit. We believe it is best to collaborate with other teachers in teaching Green Literacy thematic units. However, many teachers begin teaching units alone and later bring in fellow teachers. We believe it is possible to work as a solo teacher, though we think that is more challenging. We offer some advice in the epilogue (page 183) on how to collaborate with other teachers, as well as how to consider this Green Literacy work in your own school context. In our professional development experience, we created commentaries for each book and the excerpt to help with good thinking, group discussions, and the strategies.

A reading selection and a paired strategy that you may be particularly interested in reviewing are excerpts from No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg and Examining Preachiness of Language. Since Thunberg has been accused of being “pushy” in her rhetoric, teachers can explore the implications of this reaction to Thunberg’s words and see what students themselves think.

The following commentary includes these excerpts, largely allowing Thunberg (2021) to speak for herself. In the full paired strategy discussion (available in the reproducible “Chapter 3 Commentaries With Paired Teaching Strategies” at go.SolutionTree.com /literacy), we describe how teachers support their students to consider whether forceful language is useful.

Following is the first excerpt from “Unpopular,” a speech given at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018:

You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to your children. But I don’t care about being popular, I care about climate justice and the living planet. We are about to sacrifice our civilization for . . . a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money. We are about to sacrifice the biosphere so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. But it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few. . . . Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible, there’s no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.

And if solutions within this system are so impossible to find then maybe we should change the system itself?

We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again. You’ve run out of excuses and we’re running out of time. We’ve come here to let you know that change is coming whether you like it or not.

The real power belongs to the people. (Thunberg, 2021, pp. 13–14)

Following is the second excerpt from “Our House Is on Fire,” a speech given at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 25, 2019: We are facing a disaster. . . . And now is not the time for speaking politely or focusing on what we can or cannot say. Now is the time to speak clearly. . . . Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” . . . I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to . . . act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is. (Thunberg, 2021, pp. 19, 22)

The third excerpt, “I Am Too Young to Do This,” given in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 2, 2019, follows:

Pause and Consider:

What do you think of Thunberg’s demands for prioritizing the health of our planet over consumerism? What do you think of her language choices, which some consider “pushy”? How do her words impact you personally?

Some people mock me for my diagnosis. But Asperger is not a disease, it’s a gift. People also say that since I have Asperger I couldn’t possibly have put myself in this position. But that is exactly why I did this.

And I agree with you, I am too young to do this.

We children shouldn’t have to do this. But since almost no one is doing anything, and our very future is at risk, we feel like we have to continue. . . .

I thank everyone for your kind support! It brings me hope! (Thunberg, 2021, pp. 28, 31)

The fourth and last selection excerpts a speech from the European Economic and Social Committee’s Civil Society for rEUnaissance citizens’ convention in Brussels, Belgium, on February 21, 2019, called “You’re Acting Like Spoiled, Irresponsible Children”:

We need a whole new way of thinking. The political system that you have created is all about competition. . . . We need to cooperate and work together and to share the resources of the planet in a fair way. . . . Let me remind you that our political leaders have wasted decades through denial and inaction. And since our time is running out we have decided to take action . . . to clean up your mess and we will not stop until we are done. (Thunberg, 2021, pp. 34, 38)

The commentaries for A River Ran Wild, Seedfolks, and Jane’s Journey, along with discussion on strategy pairings, are available in the reproducible “Chapter 3 Commentaries With Paired Teaching Strategies” at go.SolutionTree.com/literacy.

Additionally, we offer an example of the commentary we created for Seeds of Change (which we consider the commentary of a personal narrative), followed by some details about how we paired discussion with strategies for that book.

The picture book Seeds of Change by Jen Cullerton Johnson (2010) exemplifies a personal narrative of both a person and an environmental movement. One storyline centers on the leader and catalyst of the movement. The other parallel storyline focuses on the movement and the people who supported and shared the leader’s vision. Both perspectives blend together to make the whole story.

Seeds of Change tells the life story of environmentalist Wangari Maathai, who was the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. She blazed a trail across Kenya, using her knowledge and compassion to promote the rights of women in her country and to help save the land by planting trees.

In many ways, Maathai’s life story mirrors the Green Belt Movement, an organization she founded that involves women in Kenya traveling to towns and villages planting seeds and trees—the Green Belts. At each stepping stone in the process of developing the movement, people embraced Maathai’s activism. Her vision became a mutual mission with others in the Green Belt Movement. The women dug in the dirt. They carried seeds. They planted trees. Women influenced other women to join the movement.

When Maathai (2004b) accepted the Nobel Prize, she said:

Although this prize comes to me, it acknowledges the work of countless individuals and groups across the globe. They work quietly and often without recognition to protect the environment, promote democracy, defend human rights and ensure equality between women and men. By so doing, they plant seeds of peace.

The Green Belt Movement’s message to young girls and women was simple: Work together and results will come. We can take that message one step further and interpret it as evidence that when we work together, our results have a domino effect, inviting others to participate with us.

How can you evaluate Wangari Maathai’s life and the lives of those within the Green Belt Movement? Does she represent a universal truth that touches all our lives? If so, what is that truth? What can you and your students learn from how she worked with other women around troubling issues, like deforestation and poverty?

In the professional development sessions, we discussed the preceding questions at the end of the commentary for Seeds of Change. The teachers talked about how women who lived in extreme poverty and hardship caused by deforestation were able to get out of poverty and address deforestation in Kenya by collaborating with one another and with Wangari Maathai. Next, we move to how the teachers paired Seeds of Change with teaching strategies.

Already familiar with the three cycles of comprehension from earlier sessions, the teachers used the cycles as they planned how they would work with their students on Seeds of Change. During simple comprehension, the teachers aimed to create with students a shared understanding of what took place in the story and in the lives of Maathai and the people who shared her vision. To do this, the teachers used the Free Response strategy as they read the book aloud with their students. This strategy gave students time to write comments about the story, plot, or characters, which revealed their perceptions of the story. There are no wrong answers in Free Response as long as the responses relate to the text in some way. In preparing for this strategy, the teachers read the book to themselves and decided on four or five places to stop; when the teachers read the story aloud, the students wrote their comments at each stopping place and then shared them with the class.

As students moved from simple comprehension to criteria comprehension, they made strides in understanding and application. The teachers moved their students into criteria thinking by having them make personal connections to the book. With Seeds of Change, they used think-pair-share (Lyman, 1981). Such a strategy is useful for encouraging even the shyest student to become involved.

• Think: Start with a question or prompt that gets students thinking about the story, and provide a short amount of time for students to reflect on the question or prompt.

• Pair: Have students pair up and share their responses. The goal is for the pairs to compare their information and come up with the most complete response to the question or prompt.

• Share: Ask each student pair to share their response with the class.

Teachers asked why students’ connections were pertinent, and students explained during their think-pair-share responses as part of their criteria comprehension thinking. For example, after reading about the protagonist Wangari Maathai, one student said his connection was that he saw a bulldozer take down a grove of trees for a condominium development in his neighborhood. The student elaborated on how this connected to Maathai’s life by saying in both situations, trees were taken down.

As you move through step 4 when developing your own thematic unit, you might again use the Green Literacy Thematic Unit Planning Template as you pair teaching strategies with each of the books and media use in your teaching unit. As before, you can consider the strategies the professional development teachers used and teaching strategies you and your students often employ together.

Next, we offer an example to illustrate how Katie, a K–2 teacher in our professional development sessions, works with her second graders with the thematic unit question “How do you become an environmental leader?” The following vignette shows how she engages second graders in coming up with wonderings, questions, and thoughts during a read-aloud of The Mangrove Tree: Planting Trees to Feed Families by Susan L. Roth and Cindy Trumbore (2011).

After Katie reads the book’s title, she shows her students the cover. “What observations can you make about the cover?”

Jasmine says, “Maybe they have seeds to plant.”

Katie says, “Yes, maybe so,” and then poses, “What about their clothes?”

“Most of them are dressed like the people in the rainforest,” says Terrell.

“The man in the blue suit looks like our clothes,” Victor says, and makes a connection between the man’s clothes and where his father works.

As Katie begins reading the book, she wonders aloud, “How could a tree make families not hungry anymore?”

Students respond with different ideas, including “growing food” and “animals living in the trees.” To these and other answers, Katie says, “Great ideas.”

In a similar fashion, Katie guides her students with questions about the text as she reads. Periodically, students make observations about the collages in the book. Other students offer wonderings such as, “What do they use the tree trunk for?” Another student concludes, “Houses and boats.” Students build a connection with another book about the rainforest in which animals make their homes in trees as they do in the mangrove trees.

Supportive of all observations, Katie encourages connections and wonderings her students make. On two occasions, she asks, “What is your evidence? Why do you think so?”

After the discussion, students take out their wonder journals to write any questions that went through their minds as they listened to the story. Katie says, “Also, write about changes that happened in the village of Hargigo because of the planting of the mangrove trees. Tomorrow, we will get out our tablets and see if we find answers to some of our wonderings. Plus, we will share changes that occurred to Hargigo because of the mangrove trees.”

One student says, “I don’t have any wonderings.”

Katie says, “No wonderings? Here, look at the book to help you.” The student gets her journal, looks at the book, and begins writing.

This example illustrates how primary teachers can engage in Green Literacy teaching. Next, we describe how teachers worked with students in creating their Green Literacy ideals.

Step 5: Teachers Lead Students to Reflect on Learning by Creating Green Literacy Ideals

As you may recall, Green Literacy ideals are a set of agreed-on, shared values about the environment and our interactions with it that a class creates after much dialogue and reflection together throughout the Green Literacy thematic unit. These shared values are developed through collaboration and consensus at the unit’s end. The values emerge when students engage in meaningful dialogue, reflect on experiences, and consider how to work together to address environmental issues. Further, creating Green Literacy ideals encourages young people to investigate and balance multiple perspectives. We saw during the professional development that this nuanced process of creation discouraged easy, oversimplified answers to complex issues for both teachers and students. It led to the creation of substantive, thoughtful ideals that considered multiple points of view.

Here are some Green Literacy ideals that the professional development pairs developed with their classes and shared and that the classes agreed to display in their rooms.

• Environmental leaders are committed to their project and the community; the leaders work hard and inspire others to help.

• Environmental leaders need to take time and have patience because environmental issues are complex and need to be looked at through multiple perspectives.

These ideals make clear that the teachers led their students to come to some generalizations about people who become environmental leaders; all classmates agreed these ideals were important. In the professional development sessions, we, and the teachers, expressed hope that this developing understanding would initiate some small or large actions on the part of the students that would lead to a more sustainable Earth.

As we wrapped up our professional development experience, having explored the personal narratives of environmental leaders like Jane Goodall, Wangari Maathai, and Greta Thunberg, many powerful truths emerged. One in particular was these leaders’ journeys began with understanding themselves. Whether they were quiet observers, bold activists, or patient nurturers of ideas, they honored their unique strengths and found ways to make an impact that resonated with who they were. Moreover, these leaders all demonstrated the ability to hold two seemingly opposing ideas or modes at the same time—hope and urgency, an objective perspective and an emotional one, and action and patience. Wangari Maathai knew that planting a single tree could spark global change and that empowering women and communities required relentless advocacy. Jane Goodall has combined groundbreaking research with an unshakable optimism about humanity’s ability to protect wildlife. Greta Thunberg wields the hard facts of climate science with a fearless, emotional call to leaders to act now. Rachel Carson united meticulous scientific inquiry with poetic storytelling that awakened the world to environmental harm. Their ability to balance these dualities allowed them to inspire action while staying grounded in the realities of the challenges they faced.

Maribel and Sarah’s Reflection on the Green Literacy Ideals and Professional Development Experience

Maribel: Whew. That was a process! Helping our students write their class Green Literacy ideals was rewarding, but I wasn’t expecting them to get stuck.

Sarah: Right? I thought they’d jump right in, but some really struggled. When we asked them to define what mattered most to them, a few got overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start.

Maribel: I’m so glad we suggested going back to the authors’ messages in the books we read. When students saw how different writers approached environmental activism— from Wangari Maathai planting trees to Lynne Cherry writing about the life of a river— they realized there’s more than one way to make an impact.

Sarah: Yes! And when we gave them space to reflect, they really surprised me. One group came up with “We listen to the Earth, and we listen to each other,” and another student suggested, “Caring for nature means caring for our community.”

Maribel: I loved that. If we had given them a list of Green Literacy ideals to choose from, I don’t think the process would have been as meaningful. The empty space on the page really mattered—it let them create, not just copy what we think they should believe.

Sarah: Exactly! And when they started seeing multiple perspectives—like how some environmental leaders focus on restoration while others work on policy such as cleaning up a river, or speaking up to powerful leaders who could change policy—they realized environmental leadership isn’t one-size-fits-all. That made it easier for them to define their own approach.

Maribel: Now that they have their class Green Literacy ideals, I feel like they have a real foundation for moving forward. I can already see them applying these Green Literacy ideals to future projects.

Sarah: Same. And honestly? This experience made me feel more confident too. I used to hesitate about guiding students in environmental leadership, but now I see that giving them a framework like Green Literacy—along with room to explore—is key.

Like Maribel and Sarah, as you plan to lead a discussion on creating Green Literacy ideals, you may start by refreshing your thinking about how to lead a Green Literacy ideal creation discussion. You may go to chapter 1’s Tips for Teachers to Create Green Literacy Ideals (page 16) for this refresher. You may also begin by reflecting on your own strengths, values, and unique perspective to model self-awareness and curiosity that inspire your students. Your willingness to explore the question of your thematic unit becomes a guide for your students, encouraging them to do the same. Through your example, they learn to hold multiple perspectives at once as the teachers who considered Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s (2009) picture book Duck! Rabbit! did (see the preface, page xv), and as the environmental leaders we mentioned earlier also did. While the Green Literacy Thematic Unit Planning Template serves as a planning tool, it can also be used for reflection. We intentionally left the ideals section of the template open because Green Literacy ideals emerge from your class discussions and engagement with Green Reads. Comparing and contrasting different authors’ messages helps students explore multiple perspectives on environmental issues. As you approach the end of your unit, we encourage you to guide students in synthesizing these messages to develop their own Green Literacy ideals.

When you, as the teacher, embrace duality—hope and urgency, respect for objective facts and storytelling driven by emotional significance, action and patience—you help your students develop the critical thinking and empathy needed to engage with complex environmental issues. When you shift your own perspective, you teach your students to see a future as they might imagine it to be—inclusive, vibrant, and sustainable. In doing so, you empower them to take their own steps inward and outward, becoming environmental leaders in their own right.

CONCLUSION

After exploring how a group of teachers led by us engaged their students in the thematic question, “How do you become an environmental leader?” we encourage you to reflect on what you’ve learned from reading and hopefully engaging your students in all or some of the books and media shared in this chapter. You can think of this chapter as your compass, guiding you through teaching Green Literacy thematic units. It can help you understand what Green Literacy looks like in action and may serve as your starting point. You can refer back to this chapter whenever you need clarity or support as you determine your thematic units, either those we support you in teaching in chapters 5–7 or those you develop around your own thematic questions using the Green Literacy model. You may want to use other profiles of environmental leaders and negative environmental impacts you are aware of, such as loss of habitat for forest creatures because of widespread human developments. Since environmental issues are complex and multilayered, multiple perspectives are needed to attain possible solutions.

Now, consider how this chapter has impacted your learning as a teacher. We offer a dedicated space for you to do so in the following “Teacher’s Corner” reproducible tool (also available at go.SolutionTree.com/literacy). Whether you’re working on your own, with a teaching partner, or within a schoolwide learning network, after exploring chapter 3, we encourage you to reflect on what you’ve learned.

Teacher’s Corner

Here are some questions to support your reflection.

• Reflect on how your understanding of environmental issues has deepened through this thematic unit. How do you see yourself contributing to positive environmental change in your community?

• Think about the environmental leaders you’ve learned about during this unit. What qualities or actions do you admire them for, and how might you develop those same qualities in your own life?

Here are prompts for journaling.

• In what ways do you think young people can make a real impact on environmental issues? What steps can you take right now to start becoming an environmental teacher leader?

• How can you use technology and social media to inspire others and advocate for environmental change? What strategies might you use to ensure your efforts are both impactful and sustainable?

Here are discussion guidelines.

• Who is a teacher in your school who exhibits a deep connection to the environment within their classroom, and how do they promote environmental awareness?

• What events or schoolwide assemblies or celebrations does your school use to promote environmental awareness in your unique school context?