ENG 205: ENVIRONMENTAL WRITING Instructor: Erik Reece. Office: 1327 P.O.T Office Hours: T, Th: 2-3

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1 ENG 205: ENVIRONMENTAL WRITING Instructor: Erik Reece Office: 1327 P.O.T Office Hours: T, Th: 2-3 Phone: TEXT: American Earth, edited by Bill McKibben OVERVIEW: As a genre, we might think of environmental writing as a sequel to nature writing. Its fundamental subject is our human interactions with the natural world. But whereas nature writing is largely pastoral and appreciative, environmental writing starts from the assumption that there is a tension between human activity and the natural world. As Bill McKibben writes in the introduction to, American Earth, environmental writing takes as it subject the collision between people and the rest of the world, and asks searching questions about this collision: Is it necessary? What are its effects? Might there be a better way? The tradition of environmental writing is stronger in the United States than in any country in the world, yet over the last fifty years, Americans have done more to endanger the natural world than the citizens of any other country. Why? What accounts for this disconnect? We will examine that question, among many others, to see how American environmental writers have used writing to call Americans attention to the effects of a culture and an economy based squarely upon unsustainable fossil fuels. This is a course in nonfiction, one grounded in the natural sciences. As such, we will begin with certain assumptions, certain facts: climate change is happening, 60% of the world s ecosystem services are being degraded by human activity, we are currently witnessing (or ignoring) the earth s sixth great mass extinction, and much of our air, water and soil is toxic. Furthermore, on a local level, the city of Lexington has the country s largest, per capita, carbon footprint. What these facts tell us, as environmental writers, is that we have a lot of work to do via the written word. The great American writer/forester Aldo Leopold once said that people will not destroy what they love, so we should use writing to make people care enough about natural landscapes that they will work to preserve them. In this course, we will examine and pursue rhetorical strategies to do just that. BREAKDOWN: We will explore various forms of environmental writing, from personal narrative to literary journalism to advocacy. We will also make group presentations that address the causes and potential solutions to Lexington s carbon footprint problem. The personal narrative essay will take up, as its subject matter, a mandatory, overnight field trip to UK s Robinson Forest. All students must participate in this field trip. Students will be required to write a 250-word (minimum) response to the essays assigned in American Earth. The responses can be wide-ranging: you can respond to the writer s style; you can relate your experiences to the writer s; you can comment on various

2 themes, ideas or conflicts that the writer dramatizes. The one rule for the journal is that each entry should be thoughtful. Each student will be expected to bring the journal to every class and occasionally read aloud from it. There will also be in-class writing prompts and short field trips around campus that will trigger journal entries. Active class participation is mandatory. JANUARY 1/14: Introduction to the class Essay One: Personal Narrative (15%) Essay Two: Literary Journalism (20%) Essay Three: Advocacy/The Op-Ed (15%) Reading Journal: (25%) Group Presentations: (15%) Class Participation: (10%) 1/16: read Introduction by Bill McKibben SCHEDULE: 1/21: read The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis by Lynn White, Jr.; Place by W.S. Merwin and The End of Nature by Bill McKibben 1/23: read Journals by Henry David Thoreau and Rural Hours by Susan Fenimore Cooper 1/26: read Walden by Thoreau 1/28: read Man and Nature by George Perkins Marsh 1/30: read A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf and My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir; read About Trees by J. Sterling Morton FEBRUARY 2/2: read Man and the Earth by Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and The Art of Seeing Things by John Burroughs 2/4: read Letter from the Dust Bowl by Caroline Henderson, Carmel Point by Robinson Jeffers and Orion Rises on the Dunes by Henry Beston 2/6: read This Land is Your Land by Woodie Guthrie and Living the Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing 2/9: read Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

3 2/11: read How Flowers Changed the World by Loren Eisley 2/13: read The Deand and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs 2/16: read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson 2/18: read TheWilderness Actof 1964 by Howard Zahniser and Remarks by Lyndon B. Johnson 2/20: read Polemic: Industrial Tourism and National Parks by Edward Abbey 2/23: ESSAY ONE DUE AT BEGINNING OF CLASS; 2/25: read The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin 2/27: read Spaceship Earth by R. Buckminster Fuller and The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth by Kenneth E. Boulding MARCH 3/2: read Mills College Valedictory Address by Stephanie Mills and The Third Planet: Operating Instructions by David Brower 3/4: read Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee and Only One Earth by Friends of the Earth 3/6: read Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front and Preserving Wildness by Wendell Berry 3/9: read Fecundity by Annie Dillard 3/11: read The World Biggest Membrane by Lewis Thomas 3/13: read A First American Views His Land by N. Scott Momaday and A Short History of America by R. Crumb SPRING BREAK 3/23: read Love Canal: My Story by Louis Marie Gibbs 3/25: Everything Is a Human Being by Alice Walker 3/27: Berhardsdorp by E.O. Wilson 3/30: Outside the Solar Village by Wes Jackson

4 APRIL 4/1: Wrath of Grapes Boycott Speech by Cesar Chavez 4/3: Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams 4/6: The Ninemile Wolves by Rick Bass 4/8: The Dubious Rewards of Consumption by Alan Durning and A Summer Day by Mary Oliver 4/10: Dwellings by Linda Hogan and Speech by Al Gore 4/13: ESSAY TWO DUE AT BEGINNING OF CLASS 4/15: The Flora and Fauna of Las Vegas by Ellen Meloy 4/17: Planet of Weeds by David Quammen 4/20: The Legacy of Luna by Julia Butterfly Hill 4/22: Having Faith by Sandra Steingraber 4/24: Knowing Our Place by Barbara Kingsolver 4/27: The Omnivore s Dilemma by Michael Pollan 4/29: Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken MAY 5/1: The Thoreau Problem by Rebecca Solnit Course Policies Attendance and Participation: Since discussion will be an integral part of the course, you must be prepared for class, on time, and offer productive discussion based on the assigned readings. Students who miss more than 10% of the class will have their final grade reduced by one letter. Students who miss more than 20% of the class must withdraw from the course. Late Assignments: All essays are due at the beginning of class on the day specified by the schedule. Late essays will be accepted, but will be reduced one letter grade for each day they are late.

5 Electronic devices: All electronic devices must be turned off at the beginning of class. Any student seen using an electronic device during class will have his or her class participation grade reduced to zero. Plagiarism. Part II of Student Rights and Responsibilities (6.3.1; online at states that all academic work written or otherwise submitted by students to their instructors or other academic supervisors is expected to be the result of their own thought research or self expression. Plagiarism includes reproducing someone else's work whether it be published article chapter of a book a paper from a friend or some file or another source, including the Internet. Plagiarism also includes the practice of employing or allowing another person to alter or revise the work which a student submits as his/her own whoever that other person may be. Plagiarism also includes using someone else s work during an oral presentation without properly citing that work in the form of an oral footnote.