Environmental Criticality in Darcie Little Badger's A Snake Falls to Earth

We argue that “big C” Criticality can be taught in middle school and high school via the interrelated concepts of gender, queerness, and environmentalism. We define intersectional environmentalism and identify questions that students can ask of literary texts as they learn to use this critical lens. To support its application in secondary school contexts, we present a series of activities that teachers and students can engage in before, during, and after reading Darcie Little Badger’s (2021) A Snake Falls to Earth . To conclude, we explain why we believe it is imperative that students learn to attend closely to oppositional binaries in both literary texts and their own lives, and we share a list of other YA novels that address environmentalism, lending themselves to critical conversations of the sort we advocate having with students.