Project Introduction

This website offers assigned readings, sample lesson plans, worksheets, policies, and large project prompts that are intended to offer new ideas for implementing an Ecofiction theme in a First Year Writing course.

Navigate to Course Level information to see some of the structural concepts and repeat assignments that thread throughout the course.

Go to the Unit Level information to see sample materials that can be adapted for your own teaching style.

I have been lucky to benefit from the ideas of great teachers all along my career path. The exchange of solutions to various classroom puzzles energizes my work. In that spirit, I wanted to share materials to add to that ongoing conversation of what it means to teach writing in a learner-centered, process-focused way. Take or leave, keep or change as needed to make what might work best for you according to the Creative Commons license listed on the site. 

Audio Introduction 

Audio Transcript:

The purpose of this project has been to gather some of the ideas that have been the most effective in my classroom, to engage students, to get them thinking about contemporary issues in a productive way, and to address some of the concerns of AI as it is developing in their lives and in ours as instructors.

It’s kind of hard to think of ways to structure various ideas and concepts without it being too overwhelming. But what I’ve attempted here is to think of and separate some of the ideas that go throughout the entire course, some of the approaches that I have students do repeatedly, like video responses, that have them returning to these same ideas over and over again. I wanted to gather those as just pedagogical tools in general.

And then, I wanted to also have materials that are a kind of structure for a class that looks at workflow as a 1st unit, then dives into eco-fiction as a theme, and then shifts to a final project on local community awareness and environmental change. So I’ve attempted to gather materials and make them accessible, as well as editable, feel free to download and modify and adapt and take whatever works and reject whatever doesn’t work for your own purposes.

This is meant to spur ideas. It is not meant to dictate how I think a course should be for other instructors, and there will undoubtedly be things that are more relevant to my approach and affect in the classroom and how I conduct myself. But if any of this can be generative and helpful, then please do what you like and um, enjoy.

First Year Writing With Ecofiction © 2026 by Joseph Franklin is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International