WRITING NATURE:
THINKING AND WRITING ABOUT NATURE AND IDENTITY
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Here you will find an abbreviated Table of Contents of Writing Nature: An Ecological Reader for Writers by Carolyn Ross (St. Martin's Press, 1995). This is the primary text for the course "Writing Nature." |
Part I. EXPLORATIONS: THE LANDSCAPE AND LANGUAGE OF DISCOVERY
Chapter 1: Journals and Letters
€ Rhetoric: Engaging in Reading and Writing
€ Readings: Mapping Exploration
Selections by Meriwether Lewis, John Muir, Isabella Bird, Peter Matthiessen, Ivan Doig, and student writer Todd Dickson
Part III. OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS: LOOKING AT NATURE, SEEING OURSELVES
Chapter 2: Descriptions of Places and Living Things
€ Rhetoric: Traveling from Subject to Central Idea
€ Readings: The Subject in Nature
Selections by John James Audubon, Henry David Thoreau, Richard Wright, N. Scott Momaday, Lewis Thomas, John McPhee, Ursula K. Le Guin and student writer Kiran Pandeya
Chapter 3: Descriptions of Process
€ Rhetoric: Developing Ideas and Purpose in Writing
€ Readings: Processes Natural and Unnatural
Selections by Rachel Carson, Noel Perrin, Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich Maxine Kumin, and student writer Liz Clabaugh
Part III. NARRATIONS: HUMAN ENCOUNTERS WITH THE NATURAL WORLD
Chapter 4: Personal Narratives
€ Rhetoric: Writing about Personal Experience
€ Readings: Flights of Fact
Selections by Henry Bibb, John Muir, Sue Hubbell, Nancy Mairs, David Quammen, Alice Walker, and student writer Amelia Hughart
Chapter 5: Fictional Accounts
€ Rhetoric: Writing about Literature
€ Readings: Flights of Fancy
Selections by Aldous Huxley, Loren Eiseley, M. F. K. Fisher, Ursula K. Le Guin, Barry Lopez, and student writer Jennifer Donaldson
Chapter 6: Histories
€ Rhetoric: Writing about Historical Events
€ Readings: Perspectives on Collective Experience
Selections from Genesis, Pomo Indian mythology, and by Wallace and Page Stegner, Noel Perrin, Leslie Marmon Silko, and student writer Kevin Cunningham
Part IV. INVESTIGATIONS: ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES, SOCIAL DILEMMAS
Chapter 7: Concepts of Nature, Science, and Technology
€ Rhetoric: Reasoning
€ Readings: Points of Reference
Selections by Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Burroughs, Aldo Leopold, Lewis Thomas, Joyce Carol Oates, and student writer Benjamin Jun
Chapter 8: Issue by Issue: Three Reading Cycles
€ Rhetoric: Investigating and Arguing
€ Readings: Conflicts of Interest
Land Use
Selections by Sharman Apt Russell, Edward Abbey, Cynthia Riggs, and student writer By Pham
Animal Rights
Selections by Peter Singer, David Quammen, and student writer Anne Pollock
Genetic Engineering
Selections by Amy Virshup, Jeremy Rifkin, Stephen Jay Gould, and student writer Jennifer Harris
APPENDIX
Weaving the Threads: An Overview of the Research Process
Sample research paper by student writer Zach Perron