Youth Media Creation on the Climate Change Crisis in the Ela Classroom: Hear Our Voices

This timely book provides effective methods and authentic examples of teaching about climate change through digital and multimodal media production in the English Language Arts classroom. The chapters in this edited volume demonstrate the benefits of addressing climate change in the classroom through innovative media production and cover a range of different types of media, including video/digital storytelling, social media, art, music, and writing, with rich resources for instruction in every chapter.

Through the engaging ideas and strategies, the contributors equip educators with the critical tools for supporting students’ media production. In so doing, they offer new perspectives on how students can employ media and production techniques to critique the status quo, call for change, and acquire new literacy skills. As the effects of the climate crisis become increasingly visible to the youth population, this book helps foster and support youth agency and activism. Youth Media Creation on the Climate Change Crisis: Hear Our Voices is a necessary text for students, preservice teachers, and educators in literacy education, media studies, social and environmental studies, and STEM education.

The eBook+ version of the text features embedded audio and video components as well as interactive links to reflect the multimodal nature of students’ work, spotlighting how youth media production supports the development of students’ critical literacy skills and shapes their voices and identities.

Richard Beach is Professor Emeritus at University of Minnesota, USA. He is the author of numerous books, including Teaching Literature to Adolescents, 4th Edition, Teaching Language as Action, Languaging Relations for Transforming Literacy and the Language Arts Classroom, and Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, 3rd Edition.

Blaine E. Smith is Associate Professor of New Literacies and Bi/Multilingual Immigrant Learners in the Department of Teaching, Learning & Sociocultural Studies at the University of Arizona. She is the Co-Director of the Digital Innovation and Learning Lab (DIALL) in the College of Education.