Short Films on Environmental Literacy (ENGL 1101, Georgia State University, Spring 2023)

These short films by Isaac Breiding and Zion Brown demonstrate students’ award-winning efforts at describing the difficulty of feeling especially connected to the natural world in urban settings (and given the pace of contemporary life as college students) as well as what they might be missing out on by not prioritizing those connections. 

Both of these films were nominated for the English Department’s Annual Prize in Multimodal Composition, where they placed first and second respectively.

The original assignment asked students to think about the acquisition and sharing of knowledge about the environment, and their familiarity with specific local or regional ecosystems, as a form of literacy adjacent cultural and civic literacies.

They were encouraged to reflect, in a narrative medium, on their own experiences:

• with/in nature or in a particular wild or outdoor space;
• their understanding of climate issues affecting the places where they or their loved ones live or have lived; or
• their level of concern about global environmental problems.

Students examined their relationships with the natural or nonhuman world around them and considered how and why they know the things they know about it. They were then asked to reflect on the following questions as prompts:

• In what areas of ecology, foodways, conservation, land management, recreation, or stewardship are you literate?
• What knowledge or skills do you think you will need to navigate an uncertain ecological future?
• What do you think you might learn about yourself through your understanding of the planetary?

Isaac and Zion, both film majors, were able to practice skills and techniques relevant to their major while transferring skills from this first-year-writing course to the kinds of compositions they will go on to create in the future.