Improving Students' Critical Thinking on Environment Through Creative Writing Class Applying Project-Based Learning Approach

Abstract

The issue regarding the existing condition of our environment has become more intense to be criticized at any level of society, including scholars. It has become a multidisciplinary topic that is not related to biological students or conservationists only as the entire people worldwide are responsible for this earth's condition. Students in university also grasp an important role in the environment and ignorance is not compromised, no matter what subject they are studying, even for English Literature students. In literature itself, as proof of the importance of environmental and ecological issues, students are acknowledged by the ecocriticism theory which intertwines literature, biology, and the environment in the same state. Even though it has its own obstacles in triggering the issue of the environment for English literature students, it is important and worth trying. Through this study, using a project-based learning approach which lets the researcher help and assist the students to expand and elaborate their way of thinking resulting in the form of creative writings, students are triggered by their own close surroundings, vehicles, and knowledge of how far they could imagine the degradation caused by their own daily acts and how severe the impact really takes. The outcome of this study varies based on the student’s background. Those who are originally from villages and coastal areas could imagine vividly the degradation that happened or the worst that might happen sooner or later, while those who live in the urban areas struggle to find out the severe impact more than pollution in their writings.