Introductory Exercise
Due Session 2
Making the details work for you.
Search your memory for an encounter with a particular bird (it does not need to be a close encounter). It may help to consider some of the birds that even urbanites encounter routinely:
- Pigeons, Canada geese, ducks, sparrows, blue jays, robins, cardinals, sea gulls, and crows.
Or less common birds, such as:
- Owls, hawks, peregrine falcons, bald eagles, gold finches, turkeys, hummingbirds, red-winged blackbirds, swans, & woodpeckers.
Shy away from bird feeder encounters. Think, instead, of an instance in which you were intrigued or disturbed, or just taken by surprise—perhaps a flock of wild turkeys traipsing across a suburban lawn, a gaggle of geese moseying across the interstate, a crow stealing bottle caps for its nest, or a cardinal crashing into a plate-glass window.
I. Devote one page of your exercise to your description of the bird and its action. Do not include your thoughts or your feelings about the encounter on this page, but do try to evoke the entire sensory experience. Focus on the bird, and recreate the scene for your readers. Don’t worry about the number of words; just use enough words to convey a complete picture.
II. On the following page, note your reaction to this encounter. Why did it stick in your mind? What associations did it bring to mind?
Submit a copy of this warm-up exercise on our class site by Session 2. Print out 3 copies of your warm-up exercise and bring them to class on Session 2.
Thoughts on the readings for Session 2
In many ways, Thoreau and Berry seem like natural allies (though they were separated by 140 years). They shared a deep connection to their respective home territories and an abiding concern about the loss of that connection among their contemporaries and neighbors. At the same time, Berry might well find elements of Thoreau’s “Walking” disturbing. Imagine that Berry was asked to explain his reservations about Thoreau’s essay. What differences in perspective would he emphasize in his remarks?
In your response to this question (and to your classmates’ comments), include at least one quote from “Walking” and one quote from “Preserving Wildness.” The length of your response is up to you.
William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness; or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”
Due Session 10
In the course of writing his long essay, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” William Cronon refers directly or indirectly to several of our course readings. If you read carefully, you will recognize the moments when Cronon’s thinking parallels, intersects with, or runs at odds with the thinking of other writers from our syllabus: Thoreau (“Walking”), Leopold (“Axe in Hand” & “Marshland Elegy”), Abbey (“Solitaire”), Berry (“Preserving Wildness”), and Pollan (“Gardening Means War”).
Select one or two paragraphs from Cronon’s essay and examine the full range of connections to one other reading from our syllabus. Your own commentary should be 200-300 words long. Be sure to include textual evidence from “The Trouble with Wilderness” and the other work that you consider in your commentary.
If you feel inspired to write more, that’s fine. In any case, we will use your commentaries as a point of departure for our class discussion (if not on Session 10, then on Session 11).
