September 3, 2010
September 4, 2010
September 5, 2010
September 6, 2010
September 7, 2010
September 8, 2010
September 9, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
In Class Opening Journal
What aspects of Patricia Smith's writing resonated with your own experiences of the environment and of place? Smith's writing is loaded with sensory details that fleshes out New Orleans as a place--making the disaster that occurred there all the more tragic. Think about key experiences you've had of tragedy and environment. Write a snapshot of that experience.
Alternative: Write a snapshot of an environmental experiences, using the level of sensory detail Smith employs as a model.
The way that Smith personifies everything in her writing, be it a storm, or and animal is what resonates most with me. As a child, I personified everything and was one big bleeding heart about things. I could easily make myself cry about a plant that had been broken in the wind if I really wanted to. Being an only child I think made all of those things, even the inanimate objects, my playmates and equals in my own little world that really didn't extend beyond my backyard on most days.
The trees have fallen. They have fallen over themselves and the soft earth as if there was nothing holding them in. The bare roots exposed to the now raging sun are like skeleton fingers, reaching, covered in the sluggish earth, towards the street. We pass, and like so many Midwesterners, we utter sounds of disbelief and awe at what the wind has done to something so strong and proud. The rolling hills and manicured grass of the golf course have been sraped and scarred like a child's knees after a first attempt on a bicycle. The "Ames Bubble" people call it. I think they must mean the bubble that keeps storms longer, invites them in, cooks a meal, and allows them to stay on the couch for the night.
Alternative: Write a snapshot of an environmental experiences, using the level of sensory detail Smith employs as a model.
The way that Smith personifies everything in her writing, be it a storm, or and animal is what resonates most with me. As a child, I personified everything and was one big bleeding heart about things. I could easily make myself cry about a plant that had been broken in the wind if I really wanted to. Being an only child I think made all of those things, even the inanimate objects, my playmates and equals in my own little world that really didn't extend beyond my backyard on most days.
The trees have fallen. They have fallen over themselves and the soft earth as if there was nothing holding them in. The bare roots exposed to the now raging sun are like skeleton fingers, reaching, covered in the sluggish earth, towards the street. We pass, and like so many Midwesterners, we utter sounds of disbelief and awe at what the wind has done to something so strong and proud. The rolling hills and manicured grass of the golf course have been sraped and scarred like a child's knees after a first attempt on a bicycle. The "Ames Bubble" people call it. I think they must mean the bubble that keeps storms longer, invites them in, cooks a meal, and allows them to stay on the couch for the night.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
On Terry Tempest Williams
2-On page 747, Terry Tempest Williams details the ritual of bird watching with her grandmother and how it shaped her understanding of the land. What rituals shape your experience of "place"? Describe those experiences in as much detail as possible and reflect on how they've changed your perception of environment.
One ritual I remember from when I was a child is going into our backyard, clad in my Pocahontas dress, gathering the small garden ornament animals to have an adventure with. There was a pair of raccoons, a pair of foxes, a rabbit, a hummingbird, and a few others that fleet through my memory because they were less permnently my companions. Daily I would trek out through my back door and almost religiously collected them up in order. I would crouch in the garden on a rock, my friends collected around me and make up dramatic adventures, sometimes gathering them in my arms and moving our collective to another location.
Those rocks in the garden thy we would hide behind or sit on became my own world, with chairs and tables made just for me because only I could see them for what they were. Because I closely identified with how the Native Americans loved the land, I still have a love for nature and how it provides you with all you need really.
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