Ecological Imaginings ESEM

Emily Balch Seminar, Bryn Mawr College
Anne Dalke, Fall 2012 , T Th 11:15-12:45, Taylor E
--or (preferably) outside; check wunderground.com
Our On-line Conversation & Protected Reading File
Writing Conference Schedule & Schedule for Being Outside (and Attending to What That Implies!)
Class Members & Notes Towards Class Discussion
Checklist and Instructions for Preparing Final Portfolio

“There's a lot of talk about the tame world versus the wild world. It is not only a wild nature that we need as human beings; it is the untamed open space of our imaginations. Reading is where the wild things are." Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (2012)

Beginning with the assumption that the environmental crisis is a crisis of the imagination, this course is offered as an invitation to re-think how we represent the world in language. We'll focus on the diversity of languages available to us for linking natural and cultural ecosystems, as we study the emerging biological and social systems within which we all live.

We'll start by attending to the words we chose and the shape of the sentences we construct, then look at essays and stories that express the shaping action of humans in the environment; we'll pay particular attention to the modes most used by women. We'll conclude by reflecting more broadly on the ways others have written, and how we ourselves might write, about matters of ecological concern: What does the ever-growing body of "greenwriting" and "greenspeaking" look-and-sound like? Are non-anthropomorphic stories possible? How fully can we imagine--and represent--humanity as part of a larger ecological community? What aesthetics might be most effective, as humans attempt to hear, and voice, the world in which we live, and which we alter by doing so? What genres and traditions of writing might be recuperated, while other symbolic constructions need to be more thoroughly questioned?

We will make our own weekly observations of the world in which we live, work and imagine, and regular forays into the world beyond the classroom (and occasionally, the campus), seeking a variety of ways of expressing our ecological interests. We'll read both classical and cutting edge ecolinguistic, ecofeminist, ecocritical and ecoesthetic theory, along with a wide range of exploratory, speculative, and imaginative essays and stories.

The majority of the texts we'll be discussing are available on-line (see link to protected reading file, above, and syllabus below; we'll explore some on-line annotation tools to help your on-line reading). The five book-length texts we'll be using are Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, Terry Tempest Williams' An Unspoken Hunger, J.M. Coetzee's The Lives of Animals, Gordon Harvey's Writing With Sources, and Diana Hacker's & Nancy Sommers' The Pocket Style Manual. The books by Bechdel and Harvey have already been purchased for you by the College, and will be distributed in class; you can purchase the texts by Hacker, Williams, and Coetzee @ the College Bookshop, borrow them from the library, or make arrangements to share with a classmate.

Course Requirements
Plan on spending about 12 hours a week on work for this class:
1) 1 hour alone, outside observing (choose a single site to return to repeatedly over the course of the semester)
2) 3-4 hours of reading and reflecting, preparing for class discussion
3) 3 hours of classes (shall we hold these outside?)
4) 4-5 hours of writing
-- 1/2 hour reflecting on-line about your "outside" observation, plus
-- 1/2 hour reflecting on-line about their relation to our readings and discussions, plus
-- 3-4 hours shaping a more formal paper about your emerging understandings....

Every other week:
1/2 hour writing conference with Anne

Once/month:
field trip (to Harriton House, Blind Field Shuttle with Carmen Papalia, and
shared exploratory session with the 300-level EcoImaginings class)

End of semester:
final on-line paper, checklist and e-portfolio

Learning Goals: Shared, dialogic, critical thinking about broad and specific environmental questions, through closely observing and reflecting on the natural world; reading and interpreting written, visual and material texts; finding effective ways both of expressing and acting in response to ecological concerns.

The Writing Center: Trained tutors offer help with any stage of the writing process, whether you are brainstorming, revising, or polishing a final draft. The Center will open on Tuesday, Sept. 11; it is located on the first floor of Canaday Library; tutors are available M-Th 2-6 and 7-10 and Sundays 2-8. Appointments may be made online at www.brynmawr.edu/writingcenter.

"Accommodations" (cf. syllabus statement from Access Services): we will all of us need a little space, a little "slack," @ some time during the course of the semester;  to "accomodate this," our shared responsibility involves letting one another know when we can't show up, making alternative arrangements (for ex, if you need to miss class, read the course notes, do another posting "saying" what you might have said, had you been here...)

Reading Schedule
I. Invitation into the field
"It doesn't make sense to have English departments anymore....The traditional model in education has been cosmopolitanism. I've come to prefer a concentric and bioregional approach to learning" (John Elder, in "The Greening of the Humanities").

Day 1 (Tues, Sept. 4)
Exploring outside, introducing ourselves and "the plan" for the semester...
Wendell Barry, The Silence (from The Collected Poems of..., 1957-1982)

By 5 p.m. Tues:  Register for a Serendip account and join our class group.
THIS IS NOT MOODLE, BUT AN OPEN "DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM."

By 5 p.m. Wed (Sept. 5): Follow these instructions for exploring the Bryn Mawr campus.  Log on to our on-line course conversation, introduce yourself and answer the questions in the survey. Feel free to respond to others' answers or to post yours independently.

**Return here every Sunday evening to make (public) note of your on-going thinking.**

Day 2 (Thurs, Sept. 6)
Henry David Thoreau, Walking. 1851; rpt Project Gutenberg, 2008 --and our on-line postings on "where we are happy."

[in class] Paul Winter, "Sea Song." Earth Music.

5 p.m. Fri (Sept. 7) --writing assignment #1: You've read Thoreau; so now, take a Thoreauvian walk around campus: locate its center, explore its boundaries (what marks the edges of this place?). "Saunter," "ruminate," and "seek new prospects," as Thoreau advises.  (What trees can you climb, "borders" can you cross, "present" might you enter? What "useful ignorance" will you "diffuse" thereby?) Then write 3 pp. reflecting on what you experienced. You can write "to" Thoreau, or "like" Thoreau, or to "correct" Thoreau. Or forget Thoreau and write like....(who?!)--but you should e-mail this essay (and all future Friday evening assignments) as a Word document to adalke@brynmawr.edu.

5 p.m. Sun (Sept. 9): return to our on-line course forum, post a paragraph reflecting on the reflections you've just written. What insights and/or questions did writing this piece (or reading the reflections of someone else) raise for you? What was challenging, or satisfying? How was your work like-or-different from Thoreau's? From what your classmates have said about their own?

Day 3 (Tues, Sept. 11)
Rebecca Solnit, "Open Door" and from "The Blue of Distance." A Field Guide to Getting Lost. New York. Penguin, 2005. 3-25, 161-168 (in our password protected file).

II. Ecolinguistics: revising our grammar and our genres
"Environmentalism is, ultimately, a question of design -- of ethical design"
(David Orr, in "The Greening of the Humanities).

Day 4 (Thurs, Sept. 13)
David Bohm, "The rheomode --an experiment with language and thought." Wholeness and the Implicate Order. New York: Routledge, 1996. 27-47.

5 p.m. Fri (Sept. 14)--writing assignment #2: select a single visualization of the Bryn Mawr campus (a map, a photograph, a sketch? of what era?), and then send Anne the image as the opening "gesture" of  a 3-pp. explanation about what you are choosing to foreground, and why. [For examples, see the 3 maps here; for further inspiration, see the range of representations @ Imaging the Human in the Landscape.] In Solnit's terms, what is background in this visualization? Where are its boundaries? What is terra incognita here? 

5 p.m. Sun (Sept. 16): following the instructions @ How to Add an Image, post on-line your visualization of the Bryn Mawr campus, along with a paragraph explaining what it is and why you chose it. Mark on that image (or explain its connection to) the site that you have chosen as your own to re-visit throughout the semester.

Day 5 (Tues, Sept. 18)
Andrew Goatly, “Green Grammar and Grammatical Metaphor, or Language and Myth of Power, or Metaphors We Die By." Alwin Fill and Peter Muhlhausler, eds. The Ecolinguistics Reader: Language, Ecology, and Environment. Continuum, 2001. 203-225.

Mary Schleppegrell, “What Makes a Grammar Green?” A Reply to Goatly. The Ecolinguistics Reader. 226-228.

Andrew Goatly. A Response to Schleppegrell. The Ecolinguistics Reader. 229-231.

Day 6 (Thurs, Sept. 20)
Raymond Williams, "Chapter 13: Key Words/Key Concepts." Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Revised Edition. New York: Oxford UP, 1985.  375-383 (in our password protected file).

5 p.m. Fri (Sept. 21)--writing assignment #3: select three keywords you might find of use for the next stage of our shared exploration (some possibilities include--but are by no means limited to-- "place," "nature," "environment," 'home," "housekeeping," "economics," "ecology," "deep ecology," "ecosystem," "ecocentric," "egocentric," "biocentric," "anthropocentric," "speciesism," "growthism," "interrelationship," "interaction," "interdependence," "diversity," "adaptation," "sustainable," "green," "ruderal," "succession," "resilience," "permaculture"....). Go to @ least three dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary, to uncover a historical range of definitions, meanings, histories, etymologies, and future use values for these words. Record what you've found (cutting and pasting works well here!). Then (taking Williams as a model) write a short essay with an explanation of what you have learned about the complexities of one of your words (or maybe two related ones: for example, what's the relation between "economics" and "ecology"?). Be sure to cite your sources following standard citation procedures and to UNDERLINE YOUR THESIS: WHAT IS THE ARGUMENT YOU ARE MAKING? Mail a copy of this project both to Anne AND TO your writing partner.
alexb2016 <--> Barbara
Cahier <--> CMJ
Hannah <--> mbackus
mtran <-->Rochelle W
Zoe <--> Sarah C
Shengjia-Ashley <--> Susan
wanhong <--> Sara L

5 p.m. Sun (Sept. 23): begin recording on-line your weekly observations of your adopted on-campus "site"; do this once a week (by 5 p.m. each Sunday) for the next 10 weeks, ending on Dec. 9th.  For inspiration, you might want to visit Writing Nature. Digital Storytelling course. Swarthmore College. Fall 2010, and/or Joan Maloof's "Teaching the Trees: How to Be a Female Nature Writer" (from Women Writing Nature, 2007, in our password protected file). Try to incorporate in your writing some of your new keywords, as well as your evolving sense of how a "green grammar" operates (want to play with the "rheomode"?).

Days 7-8 (Tues, Sept. 25-Thurs, Sept. 27)
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragiccomic (Houghton Mifflin, 2006).

Also come to class having read your partner's paper, ready to identify her claim and what evidence she gives to support it --as well as ready to describe to her what interests you in her essay, and where you got lost. WE ARE NOT CORRECTING GRAMMAR FOR ONE ANOTHER.

7:30 p.m. Thurs (Sept. 27): Alison Bechdel speaking in Goodhart Hall

5 p.m. Fri (Sept. 28)--writing assignment # 4: 3 pp. reading Bechdel's graphic novel "ecologically": what does it foreground and background about the natural world, as the "environment" in which this family psychodrama emerges? You can/should do this by focusing on a single image or page--do NOT try to interpret the whole novel! E-mail this paper both to Anne and to your (new) writing partner:
Barbara<-->Cahier
CMJ <--> Hannah
mbackus <--> mtran
Rochelle <--> Sarah C
Zoe <--> Shengjia
Susan <--> Wanhong
Sarah L <--> alexb2016

5 p.m. Sun (Sept. 30): continue posting your descriptions of your on-campus site; what dimensions are you noticing that are like-and-different from those Bechdel highlights in her text? Could you make your description more "graphic" (draw, photograph, map, video....?)

Day 9 (Tues, Oct. 2)
Fun Home, continued...

Paula Gunn Allen, "Kochinnenako in Academe: Three Approaches to Interpreting a Keres Indian Tale." The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. 222-244 (in our password protected file).

Day 10 (Thurs, Oct. 4)
Gary Snyder, "Unnatural Writing" and "Language Goes Two Ways." A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds. New and Selected Prose. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1995. 163-180 (in our password protected file).

Joseph Meeker, "The Comic Mode." The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology. New York: Scribner's, 1972. 19-39 (in our password protected file).

5 p.m. Fri (Oct. 5)-- 3 pp. re-thinking the kind of writing you have been doing. Paula Gunn Allen says "it's hard to see the forest if you're a tree"--it's hard to get outside the system you are in. But we're going to try to do this! So: pick a paragraph or two out of something you have written recently (the keyword exercise might be fun here, or the thesis paragraph of your interpretation of Fun Home; or maybe the two pieces of Sunday night nature writing you've already done). Use Snyder's terms (is it "harmonious, middlebrow"?) or Meeker's (is it "tragic? comic? pastoral"?) to characterize what you wrote. Then RE-WRITE ONE PARAGRAPH of your essay, using one of the alternative languages or genres Snyder and Meeker have suggested. Explain the effect of your doing this: what's gained? what's lost? E-mail this assignment, in the form of a 3-pp paper with a thesis, to both Anne and to your (new) writing partner:
Barbara<-->CMJ
Mbackus<-->Rochelle
Zoe<-->Susan
SaraL<-->Cahier
Hannah <-->mtran
SarahC<-->Shengjia
Wanhong<-->alexb2016

5 p.m. Sun (Oct. 7): continue posting your descriptions of your on-campus site; include a reflection of what genre you are using to describe your observations.

Day 11 (Tues, Oct. 9)
Ursula K. LeGuin, "Science Fiction and the Future" and "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction." Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places. Grove/Atlantic, 1986. 142-143, 165-170 (in our password protected file).

-----. "Vaster than Empires, and More Slow." The Wind's Twelve Quarters: Short Stories.  New York: Harper and Row, 1975. 148-178 (in our password protected file).

Day 12 (Thurs, Oct. 11)
Harriton House: Past, Present, and Future....

Michael Pollan, "Weeds are Us." The New York Times Magazine. November 5, 1989.

Richard White. "Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?" Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. Ed. William Cronin. New York: Norton, 1995. 171-185 (in our password protected file).

A trip to 1862, via a visit to Harriton House, with a guided tour by the Executive Director, Bruce
Cooper Gill. Transportation provided by Anne and Sarah C's cars, plus the legs of the cross-country team!

5 p.m. Fri (Oct. 12)--continue posting your descriptions of your on-campus site; what do you notice now, in the context of what you learned at Harriton House?

FALL BREAK (Oct. 12-21)

5 p.m. Sun (Oct. 21)--writing assignment #6: take some time to review all your postings and papers, reflecting on what's working and what needs working on, both for you as an individual learner and for the class as a learning community. How are you using the class? How do you see others using it, individually and as a group? How is this course functioning "ecologically," how might it be more "ecological" in structure and action? Are there additional ways you can imagine y/our using the class, to expand our understanding? E-mail these reflections, as usual, in the form of a 3-pp. assignment to Anne; then write a 1-paragraph summary,  capturing the key points of your assessment that you'd like us to discuss together as a group, and post that on-line. Read one another's assessments before you come to class.

III. Ecofeminism: Women re-writing the world
"...most studies of the American response to nature have focused on the problematic, ambivalent experiences of men" (Vera Norwood, "Heroines of Nature: Four Women Respond to the American Landscape," The Ecocriticsm Reader: Landmarks of Literary Ecology).

Day 13 (Tues, Oct. 23)
In-class discussion of our mid-semester assessments

Rachel Carson, Chapters 1 and 2: "A Fable for Tomorrow" and "The Obligation to Endure." Silent Spring. 1962; rpt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. 1-13 (in our password protected file).
Review of new biography of Carson

Day 14 (Thurs, Oct. 25)
Andrea Friedman, Meta/phor and Sentiment Core

Thomas Berry, Introduction, "Returning to Our Native Place," "The American College in the Ecological Age," "The New Story" and "The Dream of the Earth: Our Way into the Future." The Dream of the Earth. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988. xi-xv, 1-5, 89-108, 123-137, 194-215 (in our password protected file).

A campus-wide exploration of the geological structures that undergird our
current linguistic and cultural explorations, led by Maria Luisa Crawford.

5 p.m. Fri (Oct. 26)--writing assignment # 7, 3 pp. reflecting on the ways in which
your sense of Bryn Mawr has expanded in space and/or time. In what ways is your
understanding of the campus shifting? Has your understanding of the need for (or
the practice of) ecological literacy begun to alter in any way? E-mail this paper
both to Anne and to your new writing partner:
Barbara <-> mbackus
Rochelle <-> Zoe
Susan <-> Sara L
Cahier <-> Hannah
mtran <-> Sarah C
Shengjia <-> wanhong
CMJ <-> alex

5 p.m. Sun (Oct. 28): continue posting your descriptions of your on-campus site;
how have the experiences you are having there been altered by our historical
and geological explorations?

Day 15 (Tues, Oct. 30)
Hurricane Sandy

Anytime before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, alex, Barbara, Cahier, CMJ, Hannah, mbackus, mtran should post on Serendip any reflections on the discussions we've had/readings we've done since break; by Wednesday @ 5, the rest of you have agreed to read these postings, and to respond to @ least one of them. This is our attempt to have more on-line conversation, more discussion of the readings, more interaction (debate? dialogue?) among us...take your unvoiced thoughts to the forum! These assignments are just to generate this conversation; if you have a thought one week when you're not assigned to post one, post it anyway!

Day 16 (Thurs, Nov. 1)
Charlene Spretnak, "Ecofeminism: Our Roots and Flowering." International Conference on Ecofeminist Perspectives: Culture, Nature, Theory," U.S.C. March, 27-29, 1987 (in our password protected file).

5 p.m. Fri (Nov. 2)--writing assignment # 8: please either revise or expand the one you wrote last weekend. LET ME BE VERY CLEAR WHAT THIS MEANS. YOU ARE NOT "EDITING"/CORRECTING THE PAPER--YOU ARE REVISING/RE-ORDERING/RE-THINKING. This complete re-drafting should take as much time as the first draft did. You are also free move on to our next topic, reflecting on the possible intersections (or absence thereof) that you see among ecology and the hierarchies/varieties of oppression that are marked by gender, race, ethnicity, or class. Please mail a copy both to Anne and to your writing partner from last week:
Barbara <-> mbackus
Rochelle <-> Zoe
Susan <-> Sara L
Cahier <-> Hannah
mtran <-> Sarah C
Shengjia <-> wanhong
CMJ <-> alex

5 p.m. Sun (Nov. 4): continue posting your descriptions of your on-campus site; what do
gender, race, ethnicity and class have to do with the experiences you are having there?

Day 17 (T, Nov. 6)
Jamaica Kincaid, "Alien Soil." The New Yorker (June 21, 1993).

Evelyn White, "Black Women and the Wilderness." Names We Call Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity. Ed. Becky Thompson and Sangeeta Tyagi. New York: Routledge, 1996. 282-288 (in our password protected file).

Carl Anthony and Renée Soule, "The Multicultural Approach to Ecopsychology." The Ecopsychology Institute, 1997 (in our password protected file).

Winona LaDuke. "Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Futures" (1994), "Who Owns America? Minority Land and Community Security" (2001), "Honor the Earth: Our Native American Legacy" (1999), and "A Seventh Generation Amendment" (1996). The Winona LaDuke Reader: A Collection of Essential Writings. Stillwater, MN: Voyageur Press, 2002. 78-88, 138-147,172-180, 273-277 (in our password protected file).

Anytime before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Rochelle, wanhong, Zoe and all 4 S's (SaraL, SarahC, Shengjia, and Susan) should post on Serendip any reflections on the recent discussions we've had/readings we've done; by Wednesday @ 5, the rest of you should read all these postings, and respond to @ least one of them.

Day 18 (Th, Nov. 8)
Marilyn Waring. "Preface by Gloria Steinem," "Introduction to the Second Edition," "If Counting was the Limit of Intelligence," "Epilogue." Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth. Second Edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. xi-li, 224-241, 256-264 (in our password protected file).

If you'd prefer to access Waring's work in video form, watch Who's Counting?

5 p.m. Fri (Nov. 9)--writing assignment # 9: 3-pp. reflecting on the possible intersections (or absence thereof) that you see among ecology and the hierarchies/varieties of oppression that are marked by gender, race, ethnicity, or class. E-mail this paper both to Anne and your new writing partner:
Rochelle <-> CMJ
Susan <-> Maddie
Shengjia <-> Alex
Barbara <-> Minh
Hannah <-> Wanhong
Cahier <-> Zoe
SarahC <-> SaraL

5 p.m. Sun (Nov. 11)--continue posting your descriptions of your on-campus site, perhaps thinking about what gender/race/class/economics might have to do w/ it (how "natural," how constructed is it? what's involved in maintaining it?)

Day 19 (T, Nov. 13)
Carolyn Merchant. Introduction, Chapter 4: Deep Ecology, and Conclusion. Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World. Second Edition. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005. 1-13, 91-115, 249-254 (in our password protected file).

Anytime before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, alex, Barbara, Cahier, CMJ, Hannah, mbackus, mtran should post on Serendip any reflections on the recent discussions we've had/readings we've done; by Wednesday @ 5, the rest of you should read all these postings, and respond to @ least one of them.

Day 20 (Th, Nov. 15)
Terry Tempest Williams, An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field. New York: Vintage, 1994.

5 p.m. Fri (Nov. 16) --writing assignment #10: revising or expanding paper #9.

5 p.m. Sun (Nov. 18)--continue posting your descriptions of your on-campus site.

Day 21 (T, Nov. 20)
Terry Tempest Williams, continued...

Thankgiving Break (Th, Nov. 22-Sun, Nov. 25)

8 p.m. Sun (Nov. 25): writing assignment # 11: review all your reports on your "site sits" (there should be @ least 8 of these by now, and you should list them ALL in the "works cited" you submit with this paper). Write a 3- pp. paper analyzing the narrative that you have constructed about yourself in this environment. What do you notice about your work, looked @ through the lens of another naturalist like Terry Tempest Williams? (You are welcome to use anyone we've read this semester, all the way back to Thoreau--and including your classmates!--as your critical lens for this project). Please e-mail this project to me and your newest writing partner:
wanhong <-> Cahier
alex <-> SarahC
CMJ <->SaraL
Barbara <-> Hannah
Shengjia <-> Minh
Zoe <-> Maddie
Susan <-> Rochelle

IV. Ecocritique: Further imaginings
"...the time is past due for a redefinition of what is significant on earth....the revaluation of nature will be accompanied by a major reordering of the literary genres" (Glen Love, "Revaluing Nature: Toward an Ecological Criticism." The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology).

Day 22 (T, Nov. 27)
Aldo Leopold, "The Land Ethic." A Sand County Almanac. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. 217-241. Available digitally @ North Glen.

Anytime before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Rochelle, wanhong, Zoe and all 4 S's (SaraL, SarahC, Shengjia, and Susan) should post on Serendip any reflections on the recent discussions we've had/readings we've done; by Wednesday @ 5, the rest of you should read all these postings, and respond to @ least one of them.

Day 23 (Thurs, Nov. 29)
review the Instructions for Preparing Final Portfolio--and come w/ any questions

Timothy Morton, "Introduction: Toward a Theory of Ecological Criticism." Ecology Without Nature: Re-thinking Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. 1-28 (in our password protected file).

By 5 p.m. Thursday, plan a get together, outside of scheduled class time, w/ several members of the 300-level English course on "Ecological Imaginings." They will be prepared to lead you in a botanical exploration of part of the campus; and you should be prepared to lead them on a geological tour. Plan to spend about 2 hours together: 1/2 an hour sharing w/ one another what's been most useful/interesting to you in our journey so far, then 45 minutes w/ you leading them on a geological exploration, 45 minutes w/ them leading you on a botanical one.

5 p.m. Fri (Nov. 30), your twelfth 3-pp. writing assignment is due. This is the first draft of your final paper for me, going beyond the weekly papers you've been writing for me and your writing partner, in order to speak to the whole Bryn Mawr community -- to the larger world? -- about your current ecological imaginings. What have you learned in this class? With whom would you like to share the most important insights that have emerged for you? What format would be most effective, to say these things to these people? Though not exactly a "summative" paper, it should distill/highlight/foreground something important that emerged for you this semester, or a question you want to keep thinking about "out loud."
E-mail this paper both to Anne and your "final" writing partner:
SarahC <-> Maddie
CMJ <->Minh
Zoe <-> SaraL
Alex <-> Hannah
Susan <-> Cahier
Wanhong <-> Barbara
Rochelle <-> Shengjia

5 p.m. Sun (Dec. 2): in lieu of your "site sit" this week, describe your experience of going exploring with the other class.

Day 24 (T, Dec. 4)
J.M. Coetzee. "The Philosophers and the Animals" and "The Poets and the Animals." The Lives of Animals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. 15-69.

By 5 p.m. on Wednesday, each of you should post on Serendip any reflections on the recent discussions we've had/readings we've done .

Day 25 (Th, Dec. 6)
"Reflections." The Lives of Animals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. 73-120.

5 p.m. Fri (Dec. 7): post either your final description of your on-campus site; or your writing assignment #13 (a revision of #12, published on Serendip, thinking about audience: how to entice others to read your webpaper?). Do this by going to the course forum, and posting your "web event" here, as you usually publish your Sunday evening "site sit."

5 p.m. Sun (Dec. 9): post whichever project you didn't put up on Friday: either your final site sit, or your writing assignment #13.

Day 26 (T, Dec. 11)
Read all of one another's papers. Post on-line a single sentence, from one of these papers,
that you want to offer as a guide for the game of "barometer" we will play in class.

Days 27 (Th, Dec. 13)
A Teach-In: sharing with one another what we have been learning...

12:30, Fri, Dec. 20: Complete your checklist and final portfolio.

Additional reading (or: what we didn't quite get to....)

Steve Mentz. "Tongues in the Storm: Shakespeare, Ecological Crisis, and the Resources of Genre." Ecocritical Shakespeare, ed. Lynne Bruckner and Dan Brayton (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011), 155-72.

Anne's Reading Notes

REGISTERING FOR A SERENDIP ACCOUNT