Ecolit: Reading and Writing the Landscape

Most nature writing begins with entries in a journal. Thoreau's journals fill dozens of volumes, and out of them, long after the daily experiences had passed, he culled and cultivated the words of his books. We'll be reading a sample of them in Finch and Elder 193-207. Journal keeping is good for producing raw material for finished work, but it's also valuable in itself. The solitary communication between diarist and notebook resembles communication between observer and landscape--what John Donne in his poem, "The Extasie," called "a dialogue of one."

Get or make yourself a nice blank book for reading and writing the landscape in this class. Keep it with you often and write in it at least three times a week, dating each entry. In addition to observations and reflections, the journal can include drawings, photos, diagrams, and quotations. You'll be asked to share it with me and members of the class, so reserve private material for a different journal.

Topics to write about will be suggested by the readings, the class discussion and walks. You may want to steer your journal entries toward later writing assignments--the critical analysis of an ecoliterary work, a class discussion of a short reading, and the final essay.

Here are some suggestions from The Sierra Club Nature Writing Handbook by John A. Murray