The Eco-Cosmopolitan Campus: Expanding Place-Based Writing Instruction through Ecocomposition.

This article demonstrates how the theoretical configuration of ecocomposition--the study of the dynamics between environments and discourse, and between ecology and composition--complicates conventional approaches to place-based writing pedagogy. Here, I seek to reimagine the parameters of recurring place-based writing assignments that often focus explicitly on local spaces to, instead, broaden their considerations toward an "eco-cosmopolitan" awareness, using Ursula K. Heise's ecocritical framework to orient student writing toward a more holistic consideration of place. Such expansion of scope resonates in a planetary era where spatial boundaries are increasingly porous. First, I examine how ecocomposition aligns with and ultimately extends existing conceptions of place-based pedagogy, arguing for more explicit intersections between these two fields of composition instruction. I, then, detail a specific place-based writing assignment that initially fixates student focus on a particular, local place--our university's campus--before extending outward to consider regional and global entanglements. Through a discursive analysis of students' projects and reflective writing, I show how an ecocomposition approach to place-based writing not only facilitates meaningful composition about the ecological dynamics of local places but also enables more complex spatial considerations altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]