Science/Writing
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OVERVIEW OF CLASS
This class takes ten weeks to complete and can be completed during any quarter. Ten brief writing exercises are required to satisfactorily complete the class. Observation in your natural space will take approximately 15 minutes each week; writing should take approximately two hours (avoidance behavior and procrastination time not counted). Reading assignments are not required, although some suggested texts are given should you desire models for your writing.
At the beginning of this class, you will select a natural space somewhere near your home or work. It need not be large; a yard is big enough to satisfy the exercises here. Grant Park is, however, too large. You want a patch of nature small enough to really study for ten weeks. Select somewhere close to where you spend most of your time; although there may be more scenic areas which you might prefer, there is nature available even on a crowded city block. Ease of access if much more important than scenic beauty. You need a place that you can be sure of getting to once a week for ten weeks.
Your natural spot need not be untrammeled wilderness (which is hard to find in Chicago, in any case). It can be a vacant lot or a park, a grassy stretch near a highway or a section of woodland. It will not, however, be a space that you will alter during the 10 weeks of this class. You will be observing, not manipulating, nature in this course. Your garden, in other words, is not a good choice for this class-unless you plan to let it return to nature.
It is important that you make yourself sufficiently comfortable in your selected spot that you can observe without undue interruption for at least fifteen minutes. You may do anything you need to do, to make yourself comfortable during this observation period. If you choose to sit, do so; if you prefer standing, do so; you may even lie down in the grass. Remember as you make your selection of places, however, that you will remain relatively still within it. To deeply observe nature in one small spot will be as productive, you will find, as to cover large tracts of property. Each week, you will make at least one observation, lasting at least fifteen minutes, of your selected natural spot. Do not do your writing during the observational period. If you wish to write outdoors, begin writing after your observational period has ended. Do not plan to observe your natural setting through a window or otherwise from indoors; you will need all your senses to complete the assignments.
The text for this course is a good recent thesaurus (dictionary of synonyms); even if your computer has a built-in thesaurus, please get a printed one. The primary optional text is A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold. One of the classics of 20th century nature writing, the book examines the way the season's changes reveal themselves in a single Wisconsin farm. Many of the writing exercises in this course are inspired by Leopold's prose. Other books that you may consider reading are A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard; The Life of a Seed, by H.D. Thoreau; Dakota, by Kathleen Norris.
