literature packet organizer 📚✨

Critical Reading is an important part in analyzing anything. For example, when looking at a work, it might be useful to have background information, to identify this, one might ask questions like, “Who wrote this and when?” and “In what social, historical, or literary environment was it written?”. It is also important to consider the kind of text, is it science fiction, non-fiction, a biography? This might affect the message being given and/or the language used. Other critical reading questions can be divided into two major types: reading for meaning and reading for analysis. The first type is to decode what the author is saying while the second type is to find out why. Tones are also important in a way that sometimes it might be ironic, they might use varying versions of diction to confuse the reader or enhance the point they are trying to get across.

Writing, in general, is influenced by many factors such as cultural understanding, period of time, or political/social/ environmental upheaval. Literary criticism, or ways of reading literature, can have many lenses to it, such as Marxist criticism, feminist theory, postcolonial analysis, semiotic, gender studies, structuralism, etc. Environmental Literature is a genre of writing, and reading a work through this lens is often referred to as ecocriticism, which is used to analyze how the outside world is represented in literature. Many environmental narratives fall into the categories of either utopias (paradise)or dystopias (A place of great suffering and injustice). These environments are categorized by post apocalyptic imagery (dystopian) or pastoral/pristine (utopian) but often add an element of irony to show the notion that these environments are purely imaginative.

The Romantic Movement in literature occurred during the late 18th and early 19th century and occurred in England during a period of change. Many writers, poets, and artists despised the current English establishment, and decided to create arts that could elevate the human soul and inspire others. Of course, they didn’t always see eye to eye , but they looked through one viewpoint, and that was to make life shine through illustrative art. During a period of discontent with the English establishment's treatment of the poor, key poets like William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley believed in the power of poetry to elevate the human soul and inspire a movement toward a more just and beautiful world. Many poets highlighted social injustices and other unfair practices in an attempt to give voice to those marginalized by society (“The Ruined Cottage” by Wordsworth is a notable example of what the poets wrote at the time). Romantics were intrigued by the natural world and used sublime imagery to integrate it into their works. During this time, there were very few women poets and writers due to societal limitations that relegated them to the domestic sphere.

Right after England’s Romantic period, a philosophical and literary movement called Transcendentalism sprang up in New England in the United States during the nineteenth century. Transcendentalists believed in an immediate call to action on real world problems, emphasizing better ways to live and advocated for minorities whose rights still haven’t been received such as women and enslaved people. Transcendentalists were also among the first Western thinkers to read Asian texts and their beliefs and actually analyze them and put their practices into use. Two of the most renowned of the Transcendentalists were Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who were members of the same literary movement. Thoreau is most known for his treatise on simple living, Walden (1854), and his essay on “Civil Disobedience”(1849). Emerson was most known for his first published essay, “Nature” (1836).

After the Transcendentalism movement, environmental literary movements in the United States started to change under the influence of John Muir who was a naturalist. Later, other people like Aldo Leopold began becoming interested in the preservation and conservation of the environment. While Muir wrote more about the conservation of  national parks, Leopold believed that nature was of spiritual value and that it was a resource. Significant works include A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There(1949) and “The Land Ethic” (1949).

The event that sparked up this era of environmental awakening in American literature was Rachel Carson's 1962 publication of her science book Silent Spring. Other than her, there were many others who were researching the effects of environmental change. Moreover, her book described a world without birds and insects or animal life(as well as a sociological and anthropological outlook on nature), which encouraged the public to join the environmental movement in America. In the late 1960s, Ursula K. Le Guin began writing science fiction focused on climate change, exemplified by works like "The New Atlantis," incorporating sociological and anthropological perspectives on nature.

As the environmental movement grew, the conflict about who is responsible for ecological ruin increased. Through this, the policies and perspectives in rural and urban America became distinct from one another. People such as Kingsolver  and Okorafor attempted to make science more accessible to audiences not familiar with the topic through symbolism, different points-of-view, personification and fictional narrative. This allowed outside audiences to become at least somewhat familiar with their understanding of nature. The author Barbara Kingsolver has written ecological narratives that shine a light on environmental destruction and

its effects on rural Americans. Nnedi Okorafor’s novel Lagoon (2014), set in modern-day Lagos, Nigeria, looks at climate change from the perspective of people living in a large and bustling city.

Writers focusing on environmental literature seek to capture the essence of the American movements relating to nature because of its exclusion of the voices and concerns of significant outside groups. This is where eco-justice was born, originating from the civil rights movement, this kind of justice focuses specifically on addressing the inequity of environmental protection in their communities. This formed groups such as the N.E.C.A.G. and reformers such as Vandana Shiva and Amitav Ghosh who aimed to address conflicts with nature. In her 1992 novel Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler, a Black woman residing in California, addresses the issues faced by working-class individuals, migrant workers, and other marginalized groups, reflecting a movement that only gained traction in the U.S. during the 1990s.

Over the last decade, climate fiction has increased in popularity because of the growing concern for the Anthropocene. Some topics discussed in this genre are petroculture, and other topics of environmental literacy. Stephanie LeMenager and Amitav Ghosh are authors who explore climate change in both fiction and nonfiction. LeMenager teaches courses aimed at helping students understand climate change and formulate responses through literature, film, and the arts. She also writes about petroculture, integrates climate change into humanities curricula, and focuses on environmental literary criticism. In The Great Derangement (2016), Ghosh urges writers to center climate change in their fiction to help society envision adaptive solutions to its challenges. His novel The Hungry Tide (2004) explores climate change through a global len

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Solar Storms, written by Linda Hogan, tells the powerful story of Angel, an Indigenous woman who returns to her Minnesota roots after years of absence. The narrative highlights significant themes such as environmental activism, the spirituality of nature, and the cultural consequences of modern development, specifically illustrating the struggle against a hydroelectric dam project that threatens both the land and the community. Key characters include Angel, whose journey of self-discovery and commitment to activism is central to the plot; her grandmother, a guardian of traditional knowledge and values that emphasize a deep connection to the earth; and a diverse cast of friends and family, collectively representing the complexities of contemporary Native experiences and their united stand against ecological harm. The novel conveys crucial values like the importance of environmental stewardship, the reclamation of Indigenous heritage, and the need for community solidarity in the face of modern challenges.