In the fall of 2021, when we were still half in and half out of the pandemic shutdown, I was a student in Emily Raboteau’s Climate Writing class at the City College of New York. Despite the potential grimness of the topic, I decided to sign up because I had spent months looking out of the same window at the same mangy tree, struggling to live in the concrete alley behind our building. How much longer, I wondered, would this tree survive the increasingly regular flooding?

Our class met mostly online, so my first impression of Emily Raboteau was on the screen of my tablet. She was calm, kind, and open—I remember her making jokes about the construction going on in her home—but, despite her warmth, the course was not designed to make us feel better about the state of the world. I’d sometimes have to stand up and pace after reading the course material. But, somehow, it also wasn’t set up to fear monger—in fact, the class taught me to love the world more, not less. 

I’d sometimes have to stand up and pace after reading the course material. But, somehow, . . . the class taught me to love the world more, not less.

This balance is something Emily Raboteau explores in her new book, Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against the Apocalypse. After reading her new book and reflecting on the course, I realize that her approach to the material was neither devastating nor blindly reassuring—it was nurturing. She asked us to engage with the hard realities of the world but also to care for ourselves. For example, at the end of each homework assignment, she included a recommendation like, “Walk to the nearest body of water with a loved one and tell them what you appreciate about them.”

For an online class, we certainly got moving. In response to her own essay “Climate Signs” (also available in her new book), a piece exploring a kind of mythic quest she undertook to record art about the climate crisis in New York City, Raboteau had us: “Take a 60 minute walk with your camera phone. Pay attention like you are a traveler from a foreign land. Photograph everything in your local habitat that worries or charms you. Write about these signs and wonders as they announce themselves to you, revealing their hidden and personal meanings. What are the patterns? Format flexible: poem, essay, elegy, prayer, letter, etc.” [Jump to Lesson Plan 1.]   

More than any class I have taken, Climate Writing shaped my perspective as a human, as a citizen, and as someone’s future ancestor. And I’m not alone in acknowledging the profound impact of this course—in the fall of 2023, Raboteau won the City College Provost’s Award for Pedagogical and Curricular Innovations. She began her teaching career at Teachers & Writers Collaborative as a New York Times fellow when she was a graduate student at NYU. She serves as nonfiction faculty at the Bread Loaf Environmental Writing Conference and is a full professor at the City College of New York (CUNY) in Harlem, where she teaches her Climate Writing Course.

In April 2024, I spoke to Emily Raboteau in honor of Earth Day and asked for advice about teaching this weighty and important topic. In a conversation filled with reading and lesson plan recommendations, we spoke about the need for this kind of learning. I began by asking her how she got the idea to teach Climate Writing. As is her nature, she immediately credited the work of another thinker: 

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Emily Raboteau (ER): There’s this wonderful climate scientist named Ayana Elizabeth Johnson who has a really good TED Talk where she says that a good sweet spot to find yourself, in terms of climate action, is in this Venn diagram. Imagine three circles: one is what you are good at, one is what needs to be done, and one is what brings you joy. What I’m doing with my life is writing, teaching writing, and also parenting, and so for me the sweet spot where these all overlap is writing about climate change, teaching writing about climate change, and talking to my kids in age-appropriate ways about climate change. 

India Choquette (IC): This Venn diagram reminds me of one of the prompts you gave in class: “What does it mean to live ethically?” I wonder if that’s part of it?

ER: Yes. To live ethically. For me, it felt unethical not to bring in the climate crisis and make space for it in the classroom. I think that would hold true for me as a teacher no matter what I was teaching because to be silent about it means you are not opening up the possibility for us to work through this problem together. I think there’s something radical about acknowledging that things are so bad. What are we doing in not talking about this?

For me, it felt unethical not to bring in the climate crisis and make space for it in the classroom.

IC: Not talking about it doesn’t make it go away, certainly. And the class was balanced in terms of optimism and pessimism—or maybe that’s the wrong binary? It was more complicated.   

ER: I’ve been learning a lot from Anya Kamenetz, who used to be an education reporter for NPR and now has a newsletter called “The Golden Hour.” She is associated with the Climate Mental Health Network and is thinking very deeply about intergenerational justice. She is focused not only on the climate crisis, but on the polycrisis at large—biodiversity loss, obviously the pandemic—the ways that it has affected kids and what our responsibility is as the adults in their lives. 

I’m Generation X, and we’ve been described as the last generation that can do something to turn things around. It’s a lot of pressure, and it’s a lot of pressure for my kids, who are Generation Alpha. There’s so much on their shoulders. So I’m just trying to think deeply about how to be a conscionable citizen, and, in my case, a parent. 

One thing that I really appreciated learning from Anya is shown in this graphic she created of a climate emotions wheel. I think it’s helpful to be able to point to the feeling, while knowing that that feeling isn’t going to last. There’s that Rilke poem I really love, “Go to the Limits of Your Longing.” One of the lines is “no feeling is final.” As somebody who teaches climate writing, I want to try to expose my students to material that reflects the entire wheel of emotion. I want you to be able to choose for yourselves the approach and tone that accords with how you’re actually feeling the effects of the climate crisis in your bodies and in your spirits. 

How was it for you to take that class? 

IC: I guess it’s very hard for me to think about the climate crisis because I tend to be a very frightened person, but it gave me a tolerance for dipping in and engaging. There were two readings from the course that really stuck in my brain and also put climate in the context of other identities and crises. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Speaking of Nature” hit me as a queer person who thinks about pronouns and language. The exposure of the artifice of those language systems was very impactful to me.

ER: The Robin Wall Kimmerer is consistently excellent curriculum because it’s eye opening. You mentioned just thinking about pronouns and how radical it is to think that we should alter our perception in terms of referring to a bird or a tree as “kin” instead of “it.” It has really reframed my perception, and I see that for students who read that as well. There’s also a young adult version of Kimmerer’s book, Braiding Sweetgrass For Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, that might be appropriate for seventh grade and up. 

IC: And the second reading that stayed with me was Mary Annaïse Heglar’s “Climate Change Ain’t the First Existential Threat,” which reminded us that people have dealt with hard things before.  

It offers a lot of solace, I think, to read and to be in community with people from the past who have been working through fear, war, and extreme uncertainty.

ER: It’s funny, India, because those two readings also are ones that are impactful for me, and interestingly, they’re more hopeful. I mean, to me the reminder that this is not the first existential threat is both respectful to people who lived through existential threats in the past and have a lot to teach us about survival, and, in that sense, is also a hopeful way of looking forward to say, “Who are we to be stuck in feelings of despair?” Especially when there are people—Heglar refers specifically to her own Black ancestors and Kimmerer refers to her indigenous community—who have already survived the apocalypse—people who weren’t extinguished, even though that was the aim. They have special insights to offer us, like maybe it’s offensive to think that what is happening now is the worst that ever happened to humankind.

It offers a lot of solace, I think, to read and to be in community with people from the past who have been working through fear, war, and extreme uncertainty. It’s hopeful, which is really important to highlight with kids. And Mary Annaïse Heglar has a new picture book called The World Is Ours to Cherish: A Letter to a Child that would be a good teaching tool for younger kids who might not be old enough to engage with her article. For older students, a poem that I love teaching is Adam Zagajewski’s “Try to Praise the Mutilated World.” I love that poem. I think about it almost as a mantra. What I like about it is the injunction that when things are so hard and going so wrong, even to list or think about what’s worth praising is a way of action. 

IC: And you gave us the assignment to list the things to be grateful for. Do you remember that one?

ER: That was a good one. That assignment grows out of “Try to Praise the Mutilated World.” [Jump to Lesson Plan 2.]  Acknowledging that the world is imperfect and in peril is also a really loving thing to do because so many people are carrying around a lot of anxiety about this without having the space or the vocabulary to articulate how hard it is to be alive right now, how uncertain. And then the next step is, “Right, okay, let’s make a list.” I asked you for a list of 100 things but, for a third grade classroom or a fifth grade classroom, I would maybe make that 20 and ask, “What are some things worth saving?” 

IC: You can see doing this with younger kids. They could draw pictures of good things. Another great prompt was the “Dear Tomorrow” letter. [Jump to Lesson Plan 3.]

ER: The “Dear Tomorrow.” That is a good assignment because it can be done effectively with people of all ages, and it invites the writer to think forward in ways that a lot of us, culturally, don’t do. We haven’t been taught to think too far into the future. This is the edict of the Iroquois Great Law, to think seven generations into the future. That is just cognitively impossible for me right now, but if I’m trying to think about the life in 2100, the life of my potential grandchildren, I could write a “Dear Tomorrow” letter. For me, that might look like a letter to potential grandchildren, and because of the way I’m feeling today in my climate wheels of emotion, it would probably be an apology or an attempt to illuminate how hard and confusing it is to be active in this mode, to know how best to act even for one’s future grandchild. 

I think even a child could write an effective “Dear Tomorrow” letter that would hold space for their wishes and dreams for themselves and the planet, while also maybe holding space for their fears. It’s a really respectful assignment because it doesn’t instruct you about what kind of emotion might guide your letter. It leaves respectful space for the writer to be led by whatever they’re feeling in the moment. It might be terror or fear or hope or whatever, but it forces them to think beyond the current situation and imagine a possible future.

Acknowledging that the world is imperfect and in peril is also a really loving thing to do.

IC: I sometimes worry about teaching hard topics like this. I worry that I’m not the most educated about geopolitics, I’m not the most educated about the science. I guess my last question is, what advice do you have for teachers who want to undertake a topic that is either controversial or not fully their area of expertise? Do you have any advice for people looking at their own Venn diagram of things that they care about and wanting to teach? 

ER: I guess there’s a second part of your question, which is, how to respond to people who don’t believe this thing should be taught or brought into your classroom? I would bring it back to the question I brought to your class, which you said was meaningful: What does it mean to you to live ethically? 

I think most of us who are teachers love our students. Even if we’re burnt out, we still love them, or we love their potential, and when teaching is going well is when we feel like we’re actually cutting through the language of the state, cutting through whatever it is we’re being forced to teach. How can we actually help young people grow up into ethical human beings? That might not look the same for all of us, but we have to be on the side of the children, right? We are on the side of the children. 

The question is, to have a livable future, what material ought we to be bringing them right now? How should we be preparing them for adulthood? I think it’s exciting, actually, to think about how radical we can be in these spaces, given the potential for our students to adjust their thinking about what their career might be or to consider how they can participate in whatever their community is, in order to start working toward solutions. I want to offer a feeling of hope in the classroom, but prior to that we need to acknowledge how bad things are.

How can we actually help young people grow up into ethical human beings? That might not look the same for all of us, but we have to be on the side of the children, right?

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Lesson Plan 1: Climate Signs

Have students read “Climate Signs” by Emily Raboteau. This essay explores a kind of mythic quest that Raboteau undertook to record art about the climate crisis in New York City. To complement the reading, Raboteau created the following assignment: 

Take a 60 minute walk with your camera phone. Pay attention like you are a traveler from a foreign land. Photograph everything in your local habitat that worries or charms you. Write about these signs and wonders as they announce themselves to you, revealing their hidden and personal meanings. What are the patterns? Format flexible: poem, essay, elegy, prayer, letter, etc.

Lesson Plan 2: Try to Praise the Mutilated World

Have students read Adam Zagajewski’s “Try to Praise the Mutilated World.” For younger students, read Mary Annaïse Heglar’s The World Is Ours to Cherish: A Letter to a Child.

For older students, have them then write a list of 100 things they are grateful for and/or 100 things worth saving. The volume of the list demands that students look deeper into their existence for the things that bring them gratitude or are worth saving. However, for certain ages, 100 might be too many, so you could adjust the size of the list or you could even leave the writing aside and ask students to draw things. After creating the list, ask students to write a brief introduction explaining how the poem helped us conceptualize the list. Emily Raboteau worded the assignment this way: 

Write a list of 100 things you’re grateful for. With a brief prelude, explain how the assignments helped you frame your list of gratitude. Your list may be any format you like: numbered list, prose essay, essay, eulogy, poem, op-ed, etc.

Lesson Plan 3: Dear Tomorrow

To begin Emily Raboteau’s “Dear Tomorrow Letter” assignment, have students watch Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner perform her poem “Dear Matafele Peinem” at the United Nations Climate Summit. Jetñil-Kijiner is from the Marshall Islands, and her poem imagines a future where her island is protected from the ravages of climate change. 

Then direct students to the DearTomorrow organization. The mission of DearTomorrow is to share personal climate messages to inspire deep thinking and bold action. On their website, they state: 

For nearly a decade, DearTomorrow has inspired people to reflect on their climate legacy through the act of crafting personal letters to the future. Our participatory exhibits, intergenerational programs, and resources enable people and communities to envision a thriving future, foster resilience in the face of climate-related challenges, and activate sustained climate action. More than 5000 stories have been shared through our digital collection—an archive documenting this pivotal era of climate transformation. DearTomorrow engages tens of thousands of individuals annually, and is one of the first and largest climate storytelling projects in the world.

Have students respond to the prompt listed there: 

Think of a person important in your life—a child, a friend, a family member, or your future self. Imagine it is 2050 and they receive a message from you written today. Your message shares your thoughts about climate change and your promise to take bold action to ensure that they have a safe and healthy world. Write that letter today.

Invite students to write letters and submit them to the organization, if they would like. The organization also accepts images and videos, which might be a potential option for teachers to explore if appropriate. 

Emily Raboteau writes at the intersection of social and environmental justice, race, climate change, and parenthood. Her books are Lessons for Survival, Searching for Zion, winner of an American Book Award and finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the critically acclaimed novel, The Professor’s Daughter. Since the release of the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, she has focused on writing about the climate crisis. A contributing editor at Orion Magazine and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, Raboteau’s writing has recently appeared and been anthologized in the New Yorker, the New York Times, New York Magazine, The Nation, Best American Science Writing, Best American Travel Writing, and elsewhere. Her distinctions include an inaugural Climate Narratives Prize from Arizona State University, the Deadline Club Award in Feature Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists’ New York chapter, and grants and fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and Yaddo.

Featured photo by Anna Shvets.