This paper analyzes the theory of ecological literary criticism from the perspectives of anthropocentrism, environmentalism, ecologism, materialistic developmentalism, and technological supremacy and points out the prospects for the application of the theory of ecological literary criticism in the teaching of English literature in colleges and universities. Based on the characteristics and contents of English literature teaching in colleges and universities, a model of English literature teaching that incorporates ecological literary criticism is proposed. Taking the English majors of Normal University as the research object, using SPSS software and Coh-Metrix 3.0 as the analyzing tool, we set up the control group and the experimental group. We conducted an instance analysis of the English literature teaching mode that incorporates the theory of ecological literary criticism. The results show that the grouping presents a 0.05 level of significance (t=2.265, p=0.032) for the posttest of the application essay achievement, as well as the specific comparison of the differences can be seen, the mean value of the experimental group (11.935), which will be significantly higher than the control group’s mean value (10.915). It means that compared with the traditional English writing teaching mode, the English literature teaching mode based on the ecological literary criticism theory is more helpful in promoting the improvement of the English literature writing level of the students in the experimental group.