Bibliographies

Teaching Composition with an Environmental Reader

January 20, 2000
From: Sehjae Chun (sc19@acsu.buffalo.edu)

Dear Folks:

I am looking for some articles about teaching composition class with environmental reader. Now I am using Slovic and Dixon's Being in the World for ENG201 Advanced Composition class and want to know what other folks think. ( I checked MLA index, Expanded search without success. Did I punch the wrong keywords?)

Thanks in advance, Sehjae

Thu, 20 Jan 2000
From: Sid Dobrin <sdobrin@english.ufl.edu>

Sehjae:

There have been only a few articles about teaching composition with any sort of "environmental" approach.  I suggest looking, though, at Randall Roorda's Dramas of Solitude and his articles in JAC and College English.  I would also look at the section in Waage on teaching Nature Writing, Michael McDowell's chapter in Reading the Earth, and my own article in Composition Studies (the recent issue).  All are good starting points.

I would also consider looking for the subject "ecocomposition," though it is a term only recently moving to the fore.  You may want to join the ASLE-CCCC listserve (Randall Roorda, ASLE VP should be able to offer subscription information) where such things are discussed, too.  There are also several new books coming out about ecocomposition, notably Derek Owens' forthcoming book from NCTE.  Christian Weisser and I also have two books on ecocomposition coming out from SUNY Press, but they won't be out for a little while.

Having said all this, however, let me offer that many of us "doing" ecocomposition would like to emphasize that teaching environmental literature (like the selections found in a reader) in a composition class may not be the best use of the composition classroom.  Ecocomposition emphasizes the teaching of the production of written discourse, not the interpretation of text--that's ecocorticism, not composition.  I don't mean to critique your pedagogy or classroom agenda, as I have no idea what they are, but I believe that in an advanced composition class you'd be better off reading Killingsworth and Palmer or Herndl and Brown and emphasizing environmental rhetoric and writing, not literature.

Sid Dobrin
Director of Writing Programs
University of Florida

Thu, 20 Jan 2000
From: Rick Van Noy <rvannoy@runet.edu>

Sehjae--

Try the ERIC database, which will turn up more articles about composition. There was an edition of the CEA (College English Association) Critic that did an issue on teaching composition courses on nature (Fall 1991).  There's also a good dissertation on the topic (espcially on environmental readers and rhetorics) by Mattew S. Willen.   

Rick Van Noy <rvannoy@runet.edu>
Assistant Professor of English
PO Box 6935, Radford University
Radford VA 24142
(540) 831-5597

Thu, 20 Jan 2000
From: "George F. Grattan" <grattang@bc.edu>

sehjae,

I've had some success with Green Perspectives: Thinking and Writing about Nature and the Environment, Levy and Hallowell, eds., Harper Collins, 1994.  One of the good things about the text is that it includes excerpts from nearly all the canonical ecotexts you'd want to see, but also provides space for somewhat less commonly anthologized texts such as T. Roosevelt's 1913 "The Natural Resources of the Nation" (to take one example which worked well for teaching composition principles in an environmental context).  There are a million others out there, as well. You might also want to look at Interconnections: Writer, Culture and Environment, Carol Lea Clark, ed, Harcourt Brace, 1997.

George F. Grattan
grattang@bc.edu
Boston College

Thu, 20 Jan 2000
From: "Dawn Marano" <dmarano@upress.utah.edu>

Sehjae--

You might also want to consider a little gem of a comp text by nature/place author and editor W. Scott Olsen:

Acts of Illumination: Opening Conversations for the Writing Classroom
St. Mary's University Press. Contact H. Palmer Hall for ordering at palmer@netxpress.com

Best,
Dawn Marano
Acquisitions Editor
University of Utah Press