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Writing as a Naturalist involves writing based on natural observation
to develop your skills in reading, observation, and writing. Though
the course is designed to meet the needs of students in the natural
sciences (including those majoring in Natural Resource Management and
Environmental Science), it should be a very good class for anyone interested
in the environment and the world around them.
Besides reading the works of major naturalists, both classic and contemporary
(which may include William Bartram, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Darwin,
Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Mary Austin, Loren Eiseley, Rachel Carson,
Archie Carr, Wendell Barry, Barry Lopez, Scott Russell Sanders, Annie
Dillard, Leslie Silko, Gary Nabhan, Terry Tempest Williams, and E. O.
Wilson), you will also engage in journal writing and observation projects
to help you refine your skills in writing and natural observation.
The course will begin with attention to the readings, about which
you must produce a short essay. During this time, you will also begin
keeping a nature journal to record general observations, observations
in response to specific assignments, observations made on a class excursion,
and the observations you make as part of your project. Before midterm,
you will begin to develop a focused, independent project involving observation
of an animal, place or other specific part of the natural world. There
will then be a short midterm paper about your project in response to
the writings of a specific naturalist (or naturalists) who has already
written on the subject. In the last third of the class, you will develop
and write your independent project where focused natural observation
is combined with a response to your independently researched reading
to produce an original work of natural history.
The grade for the course will be based on the three essays (20 or more
pages of finished work) and your nature journal.
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