Essay 2

Exercise 2.1 (Warm-up for Essay 2)

Choose one of the readings for Sessions 8 or 9 (three Pollan essays, Kingsolver, Kolbert) and one of the readings for Sessions 10 or 11 (Cronon, Pinchot, Tucker).

In each case:

Provide the author, article title, original publication title, date.
Identify the key values that shape the article. (On what basis does the author evaluate the events, actions, and developments mentioned in the article? What matters most to this author?)
Quote one or two sentences that express or reveal each of these key values.
List several specific examples from the article (data, brief narratives, references to other authorities, etc.) that you could use in your own critical work to demonstrate the author’s priorities.

Post finished exercise (on two readings) to the class site by Session 12. Bring one copy to class.

Exercise 2.2 (Warm-up for Essay 2)

After you read the material assigned for Session 13, spend some time thinking about the texts that you might use in your next essay. Once you have settled on a likely pair (I will not hold you to this choice), focus on the text that you have not written about so far and follow the guidelines for Exercise 2.1. Use this opportunity to help you identify the central issue for your next essay.

Provide the author, article title, original publication title, date.
Identify the key values that shape the article. (On what basis does the author evaluate the events, actions, and developments mentioned in the article? What matters most to this author?)
Quote one or two sentences that express or reveal each of these key values.
List several specific examples from the article (data, brief narratives, references to other authorities, etc.) that you could use in your own critical work to demonstrate the author’s priorities.

Submit finished exercise (covering one new article) to the class site on Session 13. Bring one copy to class.

**If you wish to work with the same two texts that you included in pre-draft 2.1, go back to both texts and zero in on the particular issue that you plan to consider in your essay. Accumulate the quotations and examples that will help you write your essay. Exercise 2.2 should add new material.

Draft of Essay 2

Due Session 14

You will need to choose two texts to consider in this paper (see below guidelines for a list of works that you may select from), but you should not write an open-ended comparison of the two texts; instead, you should choose an issue or theme that emerges in both of them. Most of you will end up working with writers who share many basic values; you will need to read and think carefully to uncover meaningful distinctions between them.

Guidelines for draft of Essay 2

Workshop 2

In-class on Session 15.

Guidelines for Workshop 2

Revision

Due Session 16

The finished version of Essay 2 should be 1500 words or longer.

In your critical essay, you will need to make clear why the issue you have chosen matters and to help your readers understand how and why the writers differ in their perspective on that issue. Make sure that you consider the deeper values that shape the writers’ thoughts on this particular issue. If the writers whom you have chosen share some basic values, you should explore this common ground as well as the noticeable distinctions. You may expose any weaknesses or fallacies that you observe in one or both texts. You should also identify particularly compelling arguments. By the end of the essay, your readers should understand why you have written about this issue and how you assess the position and reasoning of the two writers whose works you discuss. Your own thinking on this matter will inevitably emerge in the course of your discussion, but you should keep in mind that your primary responsibility is to investigate the two texts.

You may find it helpful to organize your critical essay so that the text that you consider last comes closest to expressing your own perspective. This strategy allows you to move easily from your detailed analysis of a particular text to the broader conclusion of your essay.

Feel free to draw on one or two brief readings in addition to the ones listed below (e.g. Pinchot’s 1913 testimony before Congress or McPhee’s sketches of Dominy or Brower in “Encounters with the Archdruid”), but be sure to include all of your sources in your Works Cited list.

It may help you to think of your critical essay from the perspective of your readers. Your completed essay should get your readers thinking about an issue that matters to you. Your analysis of two distinctive texts will help them recognize the complexities of the issue you have chosen. Your logic should carry them through the exploration of that issue and lead them toward a meaningful conclusion. You need not choose between the texts that you consider in your paper, but you should make clear what the readers gain by considering them side by side.

The first version of your second critical essay is due Session 14. Please post the essay on the course site and bring three copies of your essay to class. The first version should be at least 1200 words long.

You may consider the following texts in your second essay.

Aldo Leopold, “Axe in Hand”
Edward Abbey, “Solitaire”
Wendell Berry, “Preserving Wildness”
Henry David Thoreau, “Walking”
Aldo Leopold, “Marshland Elegy”
Henry Beston, “Autumn, Ocean, and Birds, I”
Loren Eiseley, “The Judgment of the Birds”
Rachel Carson, “from Silent Spring” (American Earth: 366-376) and additional scanned material from Chapters 2 and 8
Jack Turner, “The Song of the White Pelican”
William Cronon, “Seasons of Want and Plenty”
William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”
Michael Pollan, “Gardening Means War”
Barbara Kingsolver, “Stalking the Vegetannual”
Michael Pollan, “Sustaining Vision”
Roy Finley, “A Guerilla Gardner in South Central LA,” TED Talk
Michael Pollan, “Why Mow? The Case against Lawns”
Elizabeth Kolbert, “Turf War”
Gifford Pinchot, “Prosperity”
William Tucker, “Is Nature Too Good for Us?”
Eliot Porter, “The Living Canyon”
Barry Lopez, “Gone Back into the Earth”
Ellen Meloy, “The Flora and Fauna of Las Vegas”

Begin by numbering the paragraphs of each essay. (If you are working with a digital copy, put numbers in brackets at end of each paragraph.)
Look for and underline the first clear statement of the essay’s focus/thesis/issue. (It might take the form of a question. Just do your best.)
Look for and underline the final clear statement of the essay’s central idea or insight. (This is not a test. Do your best.)
Write up a list of points covered in the essay. (Usually one per paragraph, but in some cases, the writer may have chosen to develop a single point over two or more paragraphs. Occasionally, a single paragraph will cover multiple points.)
Review the introduction and the conclusion. (Remember that the introduction may be more than one paragraph long.)
1. Does the introduction set the stage effectively for the remainder of the essay? If not, what changes would you suggest?
2. Does the conclusion bring the discussion to an effective close? Does it make clear what the reader has gained by reading the essay? If not, what changes would you suggest?
3. Comment on the relationship between the introduction and the conclusion.
Choose (and identify by number) the paragraph that offers the most compelling insight into one or more of the assigned texts. Explain your selection.
Note (and identify by paragraph numbers) any gaps in reasoning. Offer advice to the writer on how to eliminate the gap or gaps.
What single piece of advice would you offer to the essay’s writer?

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Writing about Nature and Environmental Issues