This week, you will do the opposite of what you did last week. You will observe yourself and your assumptions about the passage of time. However, you will use the distant past as your reference point, rather than a single season.

Like some of our earlier exercises, this relies upon memory and imagination as well as observation. During your observation period this week, look at the setting as though you are a sleuth, a Sherlock Holmes. Don't look so much at the details of the land as its overall shape. What, do you think, caused it to be shaped the way it is?

At the same time, assess your own knowledge. What do you know about the geological history of the land around you? Do you know about glaciers in the Ice Age, about retreating and advancing waters, about forests that were cut by our forebears to make farms?

You may want to dig into the soil in order to examine the way it is made. Take a handful of dirt and examine it. What is it made up of? If it's mostly sand and gravel, how do you think it go there? If it's mostly humus, what plants shed leaves to form that soil?

You may wish, after examining and observing your space, to ask your reference librarian for help in finding guides to the geology and soil composition of your area.

Select a point in time-any time one hundred years or more in the past-and write a description of your space as it would have appeared then. Imagine it as vividly as possible. Use as many senses as possible to capture the setting as it would have been. How did it smell? What was the light like? Were there animals or birds passing by?

As you have experienced in earlier writing exercises, you'll need to write a freeform draft of this paper, then find an organizing principle that helps draw your reader through the essay. Any organizing principle can work. You just need to remember to help your reader understand what it is. If you are describing your setting from the ground up, you might want to start with the simple declarative sentence, "Let us start with the soil." Orient your reader through transitional sentences and phrases. Never assume that just because you can see something vividly, your reader can too. Don't leave any sentences in your head; your reader can't read them there.