{"id":381,"date":"2014-09-01T18:25:27","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T18:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/syllabus\/?p=381"},"modified":"2017-05-10T15:37:41","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T15:37:41","slug":"english-212","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/syllabus\/2014\/09\/01\/english-212\/","title":{"rendered":"English 212 * * * * * * * * Professor Nichols"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0* \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 *<\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>ENGL 212\/211 \u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Writing About Nature<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Spring 2015<\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0Required Texts:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek<\/em>. Harper Perennial. 2007.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Fergus, Charles.\u00a0Wildlife of Pennsylvania<\/em>. Stackpole Books. 2000.<\/p>\n

Hacker, Diana.\u00a0A Pocket Style Manual<\/em>\u00a05th<\/sup> edition. Bedford St. Martin’s. 2011.<\/p>\n

Leopold, Aldo.\u00a0A Sand County Almanac. <\/em>Ballantine. 1986.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nichols, Ashton. Beyond Romantic Ecocriticism: Toward Urbanatural Roosting<\/em>. Palgrave Macmillan. 2012.<\/p>\n

–all in paper, all in these editions<\/p>\n

\u00a0Course Aims and Learning Goals:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This course is designed to improve your skills as a writer of expository prose by emphasizing the genre of nature writing. We will concentrate on a variety of writing problems and techniques, emphasizing specific skills necessary to a wide range of writing tasks: description, narration, analysis, and interpretation. In all cases, our focus will be on the natural–or nonhuman–world and human connections to that world. Discussions of essay reading assignments will be supplemented by workshop sessions and individual tutorials and fieldtrips. Students will have the opportunity to critique one another’s work and to compare their essays to works by nature writers of the past two centuries. The course aims to concentrate your attention on all of the precise stylistic details that can lead to effective writing.<\/p>\n

This class will also make use of a new pedagogy–or teaching method–known as \u201cblended learning.\u201d So-called blended learning takes advantage of the multitude of electronic tools and techniques now available, both inside the classroom and out, to assist teachers in teaching and students in learning. From email chains to the WWW (World Wide Web), from YouTube to Spotify, and from chat software to international video clips, learning that blends traditional teaching techniques with the range of e-media now available offers a range of new possibilities for the creation, evaluation, and transmission of knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have also been chosen to receive computer tablets (Apple I-Pads) on loan from the College\u2019s IT Service for each student during the entire semester. We use the tablets for access to open as well as library owned e-resources. Benefits of these resources will include cost savings for you, a rich array of open access and library sources, and the devices even encourage more use of traditional primary and secondary source materials. A liaison librarian–ours is Brenda Landis (landisb)–will assist us in identifying open access and library resources for our classes. Dickinson\u2019s Library Database directory (including many full-text scholarly databases, streaming film collections, statistical sources, and digitized primary source collections) is available to you from the following link:\u00a0http:\/\/www.dickinson.edu\/homepage\/584\/<\/a> You should also see–and bookmark the direct link to the databases themselves: http:\/\/libguides.dickinson.edu\/az.php<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

NOTE: <\/strong>As a result of our grant-funded emphasis on blended learning and our loaned tablets, these learning resources will produce the need for students to be externally evaluated at various points during the semester. All students in English 212–Writing About Nature–will receive extra course-evaluation forms through their email. The Center for Opinion Research (COR) at F&M is developing pre- and post-course surveys for our class and other courses being offered at Dickinson this semester. The plan is to have all of this information delivered to you via your email; I ask that you please complete these surveys as soon as possible after you receive them. This results of your work in this program will make future classes at Dickinson better for you, for your classmates, and for many students who will come after you. Thanks in advance for your help with this project.<\/span><\/p>\n

Electronic Tools for Writing About Nature<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A streaming, edited blog of examples of the finest contemporary and current nature writing:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/naturewriting.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

A site that describes the functioning of naturewriting.com (above):<\/p>\n

http:\/\/naturewriting.com\/about.php<\/a><\/p>\n

A list of the best examples of nature writing:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/shelf\/show\/nature-writing<\/a><\/p>\n

Paul Evans offers his analysis of effective nature writing:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/competition-article\/how-be-nature-writer<\/a><\/p>\n

British author Richard Mabey defends nature writing against a recent attack:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2013\/jul\/18\/richard-mabey-defence-nature-writing<\/a><\/p>\n

A good overview of the genre:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/grammar.about.com\/od\/mo\/g\/natwriterm.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

A blog-site from the Henry David Thoreau birthplace historic site in Concord, Mass., near Walden Pond (your professor is a contributor):<\/p>\n

http:\/\/thoreaufarm.org\/theroost\/<\/a><\/p>\n

An interview with Bill McKibben via YouTube:<\/p>\n