Treks and Texts: Journeys
into Nature
HCOL 40023
Tuesdays, 3:00 PM to 4:50
PM
Jarvis Hall 307 [?]
In wildness is the
preservation of the world. --Thoreau, "Walking"
This
interdisciplinary colloquium will involve both classroom and outdoor
experiences. There will be assignments,
discussions, and activities in three primary areas. From the Humanities, students will closely
read and respond to a variety of relevant texts in the genre of Nature Writing. In the Sciences, they will investigate and
discuss current issues of Environmental Studies, particularly those that relate
to local natural habitats. On the
Co-Curricular side, they will learn the methods and practices of Outdoors
Leadership. This course intends to
immerse students into both natural and textual environments in order to enhance
student experiences by offering rich, reciprocal connections between the two.
Much
of the colloquium will take place outdoors.
Five times during the semester students will travel to the Fort Worth
Nature Center and Refuge for volunteer work, helping to maintain the trail
system, and various exhibits. Four times
during the semester, students will take short field trips to parks and natural
habitats near TCU (Overton Park and Fort Worth Botanic Garden). Also offered in the course will be an optional
three-day, two-night canoeing excursion during Fall Break, arranged with the
help of the Rec Center, an evening ramble on Halloween, and Full Moon Paddle
along the Trinity River.
Outcomes:
--an
introduction to environmental issues and how these issues have been reflected
in literature, film, and popular media
--a
familiarity with the genre development of Nature Writing from early exploration
accounts to the present
--a
familiarity with major texts and writers of the Nature Writing genre and their
various cultural contexts
--a
familiarity with the characteristic techniques, themes, styles, conventions,
and tropes of the Nature Writing genre
--an
ability to reflect on personal observations and experiences in natural environments
--a
general knowledge of a specific natural environment
--a
general understanding of issues and practices in Environmental Studies
--a
knowledge of Outdoors Leadership skills
--a
writing portfolio of the student’s own nature writings, including a final
Nature Essay
--a
general understanding of literature as it reflects and impacts society and the
individual
--an
ability to use writing to gain and express an understanding of
discipline-specific content
Week One, 08/22
--Introduction, an overview of the course, its
schedule, its requirements, and its outcomes.
Week Two, 08/29
--excursion to the Fort Worth Nature Center and
Refuge for volunteer work
Week Three, 09/05
--excursion to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden
--Meriwether Lewis (from Nature Writing, 95-104)
--“Introduction” and Chapters One and Two from Wilderness and the American Mind (x-xiv,
8-43)
Week Four, 09/12
--excursion to the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge for volunteer work
Week Five, 09/19
--excursion to Overton Park
--discussion of Henry David Thoreau, from Nature Writing, 168-205
--Chapters Three, Four, and Five from Wilderness and the American Mind, 44-95
Week Six, 09/26
--excursion to the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge for volunteer work
Week Seven, 10/03
--campus class
--John Muir, Luther Standing Bear, and Aldo Leopold,
from Nature Writing, 251-258,
326-331, 376-397
--Chapters Six, Eight, and Eleven from Wilderness and the American Mind, 96-107,
122-140, 182-199
Week Eight, 10/10
--excursion to Fort Worth Botanic Garden
--Loren Eiseley, Wallace Stegner, Thomas Merton, from
Nature Writing, 485-493, 504-514,
545-553
--Chapters Seven, Nine, and Ten from Wilderness and the American Mind, 108-121,
141-181
Week Nine, 10/17
--Fall Break excursion, Canoeing on the Rio Grande
in Big Bend (optional)
Week Ten, 10/24
--excursion to the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge for volunteer work
Week Eleven, 10/31
(Halloween)
--Overton Park
--Edward Abbey, from Nature Writing, 614-627
--optional night walk
Week Twelve, 11/07
--excursion to the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge for volunteer work
Week Thirteen, 11/14
--campus class
--Edward Abbey, from The Best of Edward Abbey, 40-80, 118-130, 272-307, 386-395, 426-432
Week Fourteen, 11/21
--campus class
--Berry, Dillard, and McKibben, from Nature
Writing, 718-736, 867-891, 1120-1130
--first draft of Nature Essay due
Week Fifteen, 11/28
--campus class
--instructor and peer review of
final Nature Essays
Week Sixteen, 12/05
--campus class
--final presentations
Course Requirements:
1) Attendance and
Participation. You are required to take an
active part in the colloquium and to contribute to its success. Outside excursions are required. Also, in many classes there will be some sort
of in-class activity (brief writing assignments or group work), and anyone
absent will not receive credit for these activities. Missing more than three classes during the
term will result in failure.
2) Familiarity with
the Texts. A reading knowledge of the
texts is essential and expected. Please
read.
3) Fort Worth Nature
Center and Refuge Excursions. Throughout
the semester the students will meet at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge
for volunteer work. Students will be
divided into 6 teams of 3 students, and each team—accompanied by a FWNCR staff
person—will experience different parts of the Nature Center (woods, prairie,
and water/shoreline habitats), sharing various assignments and tasks. Also, each team will take responsibility for a
specific stretch of a Nature Center trail, not only to do trail maintenance but
also to learn specific environmental information about that stretch of trail.
4)
Lead
Respondent Assignment: Throughout the semester students will be asked to
help lead discussions concerning the assigned reading texts, and these
assignments must be undertaken by the Nature Center teams. Each group will choose a text or group of
texts, assigned on specific class days, and will be expected to make a
presentation to the class that will encourage insight and discussion. These presentations may include biographical
or historical information about the author, the text’s composition, summaries
of the text’s print history and reception, and an analysis of its themes and
issues. More importantly, these
presentations should also include a discussion of what the group thinks is
relevant in the text and a list of questions for discussion. These presentations should be informative,
creative, and engaging. A brief handout summarizing key points
and pertinent information and listing the discussion questions is required.
5) Nature Journals. Nature writers often keep meticulous
journals, and for this field-intensive colloquium, students will be asked to
keep a journal as part of their Frog Folio accounts. Nature journals not only describe specific
physical settings, including flora and fauna, but also on how individuals react
to the environments. Entries should be a
minimum of 2 pages in length, and by the end of the semester students will be
expected to have written and uploaded 16 journal entries. These entries should comment on both the
field trips and/or the assigned readings.
For the readings, students should honestly describe what their reading
experiences were like and remark on what they thought was interesting,
provocative, or relevant in the texts. For the excursions, observations of the
natural environments are expected, and self-reflections are encouraged. Student should write about their
observations, thoughts, and responses. Throughout
the semester students will receive credit for their journal entries, and at the
end of the semester the cumulative holistic quality of their journals will be
evaluated and graded.
6) INaturalist.Org
Postings. Throughout the semester
students will be required to post a minimum of 4 entries on the INaturalist.Org
site, either offering a piece of specific information about the flora and/or
fauna in their assigned Nature Center trail stretch, or asking for help
identifying a specific flora or fauna from their trail stretches.
7) Nature Essay. In order to practice their own nature
writing, students will be asked to submit a Nature Essay at the end of the
semester. This final essay should be an
extension and revision of one of their journal entries, and it should be 6 to
10 pages in length. These essays must
demonstrate several of the stylistic techniques from one or several of the
assigned Nature writers, and they must also reflect a strong structure and
overall thesis. Specific, closely detailed descriptions of environment[s]
should be mixed with self-reflection describing how the students reacted to,
and interacted with, their environments.
8) Final Presentation. For this last assignment, each Nature Center
team will give a multimedia presentation based on their trail assignments. These presentations may include photographs,
videos, sketches, art, recordings, music, prose, and poetry that, in some way,
examine the unique features and importance of their trail assignments. Students will be expected to demonstrate what
they learned about their assigned environments and from their INaturalist
postings. They may also include final
reflections, thoughts, and observations of their experiences throughout the semester.
9)
Never Use the Non-Word “Very.”
For the rest of the semester, at least in our class, this
four-letter nonword is forbidden. It is
a useless word, and the English vocabulary is rich with specific, vivid
qualifiers and descriptors. “The day was
very sunny” is a weak sentence.
While not a “requirement,” there will be an optional canoe trip on the Rio Grande during Fall Break. In order to experience a truly unique natural
environment maintained by the National Park Service (NPS), students are
encouraged to participate in this excursion.
Final Grade:
Nature
Journals 20% (16% for the holistic journal, 4%
for entries)
Lead
Respondent Assignments 20%
Nature
Essays 20%
Final
Presentations 20%
INaturalist
Entries 10%
Attendance/Participation 10%
Required Texts:
Nature Writing: The
Tradition in English, Finch and Elder, W.W. Norton
Wilderness and the
American Mind, Roderick Nash, Yale University Press
Writing About Nature, John A. Murray,
University of New Mexico Press (Optional)
The Best of Edward Abbey,
Sierra
Club Books
Dan
Williams
TCU
Press (3000 Sandage) and 3018D Scharbauer
817-257-5907
(office)
817-239-1376
(cell)
Office
hours: By appointment. Please verify
where I am holding office hours before trying to locate me. I am most often found at TCU Press, located
at 3000 Sandage on the far eastern edge of campus.
TCU Mission: To
educate individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible
citizens in the global community.
Honors Pledge: “As a member of the John V. Roach
Honors College, I pledge to dedicate myself to intellectual inquiry, life-long
learning, and critical thinking, to demonstrate personal and academic
integrity, and to engage others in earnest and respectful discussion with an
open mind.”
**Statement of Disability Services at TCU
Disabilities
Statement: Texas Christian University complies with the Americans with
Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 regarding
students with disabilities. Eligible
students seeking accommodations should contact the Coordinator of Student
Disabilities Services in the Center for Academic Services located in Sadler
Hall, 1010. Accommodations are not
retroactive, therefore, students should contact the Coordinator as soon as
possible in the term for which they are seeking accommodations. Further
information can be obtained from the Center for Academic Services, TCU Box
297710, Fort Worth, TX 76129, or at (817) 257-6567.
[Note: The following two
paragraphs are recommended, but are not required.]
Adequate time must be allowed to arrange accommodations and
accommodations are not retroactive; therefore, students should contact the
Coordinator as soon as possible in the academic term for which they are seeking
accommodations. Each eligible student
is responsible for presenting relevant, verifiable, professional documentation
and/or assessment reports to the Coordinator. Guidelines for documentation may be found at http://www.acs.tcu.edu/disability_documentation.asp.
Students with emergency medical
information or needing special arrangements in case a building must be
evacuated should discuss this information with their instructor/professor as
soon as possible.
**Academic Misconduct
Academic Misconduct (Sec. 3.4 from the Student Handbook):
Any act that violates the academic integrity of the institution is considered
academic misconduct. The procedures used to resolve suspected acts of academic
misconduct are available in the offices of Academic Deans and the Office of
Campus Life and are listed in detail in the Undergraduate Catalog. Specific
examples include, but are not limited to:
- Cheating: Copying from another student’s test paper, laboratory
report, other report, or computer files and listings; using, during any
academic exercise, material and/or devices not authorized by the person in
charge of the test; collaborating with or seeking aid from another student
during a test or laboratory without permission; knowingly using, buying,
selling, stealing, transporting, or soliciting in its entirety or in part,
the contents of a test or other assignment unauthorized for release;
substituting for another student or permitting another student to
substitute for oneself.
- Plagiarism: The appropriation, theft, purchase or obtaining by
any means another’s work, and the unacknowledged submission or
incorporation of that work as one’s own offered for credit. Appropriation
includes the quoting or paraphrasing of another’s work without giving
credit therefore. [If you are using Turnitin, place information about your course
ID/password or TCU Online integration. If you want to use Turnitin as a
spot check please indicate that you may use Turnitin for plagiarism
detection.]
- Collusion: The unauthorized collaboration with another in
preparing work offered for credit.
Netiquette: Communication Courtesy Code
All members of the class are expected to
follow rules of common courtesy in all email messages, discussions, and
chats. If I deem any of them to be inappropriate or offensive, I will
forward the message to the Chair of the department and appropriate action will
be taken, not excluding expulsion from the course. The same rules apply online
as they do in person. Be respectful of other students. Foul discourse
will not be tolerated. Please take a moment and read the following link
concerning "netiquette."
Participating in the virtual realm,
including social media sites and shared-access sites sometimes used for
educational collaborations, should be done with honor and integrity:
