English 132A
SEMINAR IN WRITING & RHETORIC:
Ecology of the text
MW: 3 – 4:30 p.m., Lowry Wyatt Hall 206
William J. Kupinse, Assistant Professor of English
Office: 338 Lowry Wyatt Hall
Office Tel.: 879-3286
Office Hours: Tues 3-5 pm, Wed 1-2 pm, Thurs 2-4 pm, and by appointment
E-mail: wkupinse@ups.edu
CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK TO THE ENGL 132A RESEARCH GATEWAY WEBPAGE
REQUIRED TEXTS:
· Anderson, Slovic, and O’Grady (eds.), Literature and the Environment
· Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire
· Robert Michael Pyle, Wintergreen: Rambles in a Ravaged Land
· The Logger, 2003-2004
· Course Handouts
· Diana Hacker, The Bedford Handbook, Sixth Edition
OPTIONAL TEXT:
· Joseph Gibaldi, The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Fifth Edition
COURSE DESCRIPTION AND MODE OF INSTRUCTION:
If ecology is the relationship of living organisms to their environment, how might we describe the ecology of writer, text, and audience? How does an implicit sense of environment—whether “natural,” humanly constructed, or some combination of the two—inform all written and verbal arguments?
By examining a varied selection of ecological texts, this class will explore how and why writers have argued for particular understandings of the concepts of ecology and environment. Drawing on essays, short fiction, poetry, and film, and with a particular emphasis on Washington State writer Robert Michael Pyle’s Wintergreen: Rambles in a Ravaged Land, we will further explore the social, political, and cultural issues at stake in these contested definitions. Among the questions this class will consider: Is it still possible to speak of the concept of nature as separate from human activity? Do the more familiar critical issues of race, gender, and colonial legacy mediate representations of ecology and environment?
In addition to addressing these issues through the assigned reading, this course will ask each member to engage in a sustained investigation of an ecology of her own choosing. This investigation will require a minimum of two visits to the chosen ecology/environment, and will structure a connected series of writing assignments and oral presentations.
This course satisfies the Core requirement in Writing and Rhetoric by offering extensive experience in crafting persuasive oral and written arguments, and in doing so it pursues an integrated approach. During the first week of class, you will select and visit an environment (ideally one not too far from the UPS campus, as you’ll need to return to your place at least once more) which will form the focus of your writing and oral presentations during the course of the semester. A journal writing exercise will offer an initial opportunity for you to set down your thoughts about your chosen environment; you’ll make a short presentation to introduce course members to your place the following week.
While your journal entries, essays, research papers, and other writing assignments (see below) must be your own, individual work, you are welcome to pool transportation resources and travel to your chosen environment with a classmate. Please let me know via email if you plan to do this.
Over the next four months, your choice of place will inform a linked series of written and oral assignments: you will write a letter arguing for a particular course of action on your environment; you will write a critical essay on a literary text, evaluating the suitability of the author’s approach for your own environment; you will present orally an environmental status report on your environment, which you will then submit as a paper; you will write an essay on the history of the place, which will encompass both textual research and oral history; and you will write a creative response to your environment. You will be required to revise each of these written assignments (with the exception of the letter and the creative approach) after receiving feedback from the course instructor and/or a peer review group. At the end of the semester, you will draw freely from the substantial body of work you have written and revised to craft a final paper on the environment you have chosen; you will submit this comprehensive paper and all work from the semester in an inclusive portfolio.
This class will be conducted as a seminar and writing workshop. While I will make a series of brief presentations on specific texts and aspects of the writing process, writing and discussion will be our primary activities in this class. It is therefore essential that you come to class having completed the relevant reading and writing assignments and that you be prepared to participate in the scheduled activities for each day.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to
· understand the rhetorical strategies employed by significant texts of nature
and environmental writing
· evaluate intelligently the function and relative efficacy of these strategies
· conduct responsible research using both library and online resources, whether
relating to environmental literature and its interpretation or to environmental
science and its analysis
· construct original, rigorous, and stylistically graceful arguments
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND EVALUATION:
Assignments and activities in this class will be weighted in calculating your final grade as follows.
Participation, Journal Writing, Issue Letter 10%
Short Oral Presentation: Introducing Place 5%
Critical Essay on Literary Text (5-6 pp.) 15%
Longer Oral Presentation: Environmental Issue 10%
Essay: History of Place (5-6 pp.) 15%
Essay: Environmental Assessment (5-6 pp.) 15%
Creative Response to Place (length open) 5%
Comprehensive Paper (10-12 pp.) and Portfolio 25%
Each of you will maintain a portfolio (e.g., a folder or binder) containing copies of each writing assignment that you complete over the course of the semester as well as a videotape of your major oral presentation. During the final weeks of the semester, you will substantially revise three of the items in your portfolio and compose a series of written reflections documenting and justifying the decisions you have made in the process of revision. The submission of your completed portfolio, including your revisions and written reflections on the process of revising, will be the final requirement for this class.
Essays should follow MLA format, which will be presented in class and is described at length in The Bedford Handbook. Written work submitted after the due date indicated on the syllabus will be penalized by one grade increment for each calendar day that it is late (thus, a “B” paper submitted one day late will receive a grade of “B-”). Instances of plagiarism and other acts of academic dishonesty will be penalized according to the policies and protocols set forth in the current issue of The Logger (pp. 13-19).
Because this class will be conducted as a hands-on writing workshop and because we will cover a great deal of material in each class session, it is imperative that you attend class regularly. Any absence has the potential to affect your final grade adversely. General policies governing attendance and class participation may be found in the current issue of The Logger (p. 56). In cases in which an absence is unavoidable due to an emergency, please speak to me as soon as is possible about making up any missed work.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY POLICY:
The University of Puget Sound does not discriminate in education or employment on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, marital or familial status, sexual orientation, Vietnam-era veteran status, or any other basis prohibited by local, state, or federal laws. This policy complies with the spirit and the letter of applicable federal, state, and local laws, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Questions about this policy may be directed to Rosa Beth Gibson, the University’s Director of Human Resources and Affirmative Action Officer (1218 North Lawrence Street, 879-3116), or to the Office of Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education, Washington, DC, 20302.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY:
Given the inevitable amount of paper that a writing and rhetoric class produces, I try to do everything I can to conserve and recycle paper. As part of this effort, I welcome papers printed on both sides or printed on the reverse side of scrap paper. I’d prefer that you never submit your paper in a folder of any kind (except for your semester portfolio, of course) or include a separate title page. I don’t yet accept papers electronically--they’re too hard to mark effectively on a computer screen--although I may do this in the future.
SCHEDULE OF ASSIGNMENTS:
Jan. 21 (W) Business Matters; Map of Mt. Rainier, Denise Levertov, “Settling” (handout)
Atwood, “Frogless”; Jeffers, “The Purse-Seine” (handouts)
Jan. 23 (F) Individual Conferences
Weekend: Visit to chosen environment – journal writing assignment
Jan. 26 (M) Barry Lopez, “The Mappist” (handout)
John Muir, “A Wind-Storm in the Forests” (178-84)
The Logger - read section on “Academic Honesty” (13-19)
Jan. 28 (W) Jack Kerouac, “Alone on a Mountaintop” (191-199)
Barbara Kingsolver, “The Memory Place” (199-205)
Jane Smiley, From A Thousand Acres (handout)
SHORTER ORAL PRESENTATIONS – INTRODUCING PLACE
PLACING GENRE
Feb. 2 (M) Wallace Stegner, “Wilderness Letter” (442-447)
Robinson Jeffers, “Passenger Pigeons” (474-6)
Jack London, “To Build a Fire” (31-41)
ISSUE-ORIENTED LETTER DUE IN CLASS
Feb. 4 (W) Jim Dodge, “Living by Life” (230-238)
Joyce Carol Oates, “The Buck” (130-140)
Pattiann “Rogers, “Knot” (61-62)
Feb. 6 (F) CRITICAL ESSAY DUE by noon in Wyatt 338 (5-6 pp.)
Feb. 9 (M) Annie Dillard, “Living Like Weasels” (4-8)
Pam Houston, “A Blizzard under Blue Sky” (184-188)
Wendell Berry, “Stay Home” (222-223)
Carol Polsgrove, “On a Scrap of Land in Henry County” (223-229)
Feb. 11 (W) Henry David Thoreau, “Solitude” (47-53) and “Spring” (handout)
Ellen Meloy, “The Flora and Fauna of Las Vegas” (240-249)
Maxine Hong Kingston, “A City Person Encountering Nature” (71-73)
Feb. 13 (F) REVISION OF CRITICAL ESSAY DUE by noon in Wyatt 338
OUR CONSUMING NATURE
Feb. 16 (M) RESEARCH SKILLS WORKSHOP – Meet in Library
Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California” (380-381)
Feb. 18 (W) Alan Thein Durning, “The Conundrum of Consumption” (372-376)
Theodore Roszak, “Take this Job and Shove It” (367-371)
U. S. Bishops, “Renewing the Earth” (498-503)
B. Traven, “Assembly Line” (356-365)
Feb. 23 (M) HISTORY OF PLACE ESSAY DUE (5-6 pp.) – BRING 3 COPIES TO CLASS
Evelyn White, “Black Women and the Wilderness” (316-321)
Sally Bingham, “A Woman's Land” (424-427)
Wintu Tribe, “The Willingness of a Deer to Die” (117-119)
Rudolfo Anaya, “Devil Deer” (486-491)
Feb. 25 (W) PEER REVIEWS DUE: IN-CLASS REVISION WORKSHOP
Benjamin Alire Saenz, “Exile. El Paso, Texas” (309)
Jamaica Kincaid, “Alien Soil” (327-332)
Beth Brant, “This Place” (298-309)
Running Grass, “Building a More Inclusive Environmental Movement” (322-327)
Mar. 1 (M) Rush Limbaugh III, “The Environmental Mindset” (439-442)
Union of Concerned Scientists, “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity” (457-461)
Rachel Carson, “Of Man and the Stream of Time” (477-481)
Bill McKibben, “Not So Fast” (464-467)
Mar. 3 (W) Aldo Leopold, “Thinking Like a Mountain” (148-150)
Wallace Kaufman, “Confessions of a Developer” (413-422)
Margaret L. Knox, “The World According to Cushman” (338-344)
John McPhee from An Island (427-432)
REVISION OF HISTORY OF PLACE ESSAY DUE IN CLASS
Mar. 8 (M) The Presidential Race and the Environment: Roundtable Discussion
Thoreau, from Walden (handout)
Mar. 10 (W) Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness” (handout)
Nov. 5 (W) Maier, “Hatching Wildness” (handout)
Louis Owens “The American Indian Wilderness” (447-449)
Mar. 15-19 No Class - Spring Recess
Mar. 22 (M) ORAL PRESENTATION: “Environmental Assessment” - Panels 1 and 2
Mar. 24 (W) ORAL PRESENTATION: “Environmental Assessment” - Panels 3 and 4
Mar. 29 (M) Robert Michael Pyle, Wintergreen: Rambles in a Ravaged Land, Part One: Rain World (1-54)
(click here for Grays River area photos)
Mar. 31 (W) Wintergreen, Part Two: Denizens [skip “Waterproof Wildlife”] (55-112)
(note that due date for draft of ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT essay has been changed)
Apr. 2 (F) by 9 a.m. ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT due as email attachment
(MS Word preferred); email to wkupinse@ups.edu
LOCAL STUDIES
Apr. 5 (M) PEER REVIEWS DUE: IN-CLASS REVISION WORKSHOP
(click here for group assignments and links to papers)
Wintergreen, Part Three: Hands on the Land [skip “Stump Watcher”] (131-207)
In-class Collaborative Exercise for Wintergreen (click here for groups and instructions)
Apr. 7 (W) Wintergreen, Part Four: Out of the Mists
[skip “Rain-Forest Year” and “Countrymen and Naturalists”] (261-290)
Skaay, from Being in Being (handout)
IMAGINING PLACE
Apr. 12 (M) A Thousand Acres (in-class film screening)
Apr. 14 (W) A Thousand Acres- Discussion
Apr. 16 (F) REVISION OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT ESSAY DUE BY NOON, WYATT 338
Apr. 19 (M) Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire: Introduction and Chapter I (xiii-58)
Apr. 21 (W) The Botany of Desire: Chapters 2 (111-238)
Weekend: Second visit to chosen environment – journal writing assignment
Apr. 26 (M) The Botany of Desire: Chapters 3 (111-179)
Apr. 28 (W) The Botany of Desire: Chapter 4 and Epilogue (183-245)
WRAPPING UP
May. 3 (M) Creative Assignment Presentations
CREATIVE ASSIGNMENT DUE
May. 5 (W) REVISING FOR AN AUDIENCE: Workshop
May. 14 (F) FINAL EXAM TIME SLOT; NO EXAM, BUT REVISED FINAL PAPER
WITH COVERSHEET AND PORTFOLIO DUE BY 10:00 A.M, Lowry Wyatt 338
(If you'd like your portfolio returned, you should include a large S.A.S.E.
with your summer address)
· Anderson, Lorraine (ed.), Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture (1998)
· Bate, Jonathan, The Song of the Earth (2000)
· Branch, Michael P. (ed.), The Isle Reader: Ecocriticism, 1993-2003 (2003)
· Buell, Lawrence, The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing and the Formation of American Culture (1995)
· ---, Writing for an Endangered World: Literature, Culture, and Environment in the U.S. and Beyond (2001)
· Coupe, Laurence (ed.), The Green Studies Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism (2000)
· Dobrin, Sidney I. and Christian Weisser, Natural Discourse: Toward Ecocomposition (2002)
· Glotfelty, Cheryll and Harold Fromm (eds.), The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology (1996)
· Steven Rosedale (ed.), The Greening of Literary Scholarship: Literature, Theory and the Environment (2002)
· Slovic, Scott and Terrell Dixon (eds.), Being in the World: An Environmental Reader for Writers (1992)
· Weisser, Christian and Sidney I. Dobrin (eds.), Ecocomposition: Theoretical and Pedagogical Approaches (2001)