“Sense of Place” Essay Assignment1

Ecology of Language and Place, Spring Quarter 2009

With: R. Chamberlain & R. McKinnon

"What now seems opaque, you will make transparent with your blazing heart."  Rilke

I. Due Dates:
 First Draft due: 4-22
In-class Editing Workshop: First draft (3- 5 pages, double-spaced) due for review. Bring three
or four copies of your draft essay for a peer-editing workshop. If you do not bring a draft,
members of your writing group will not be able to give you feedback on your manuscript.

 Second Draft due: 5-11

In-class Editing Workshop: Second draft (5-9 pages, double-spaced) of complete essay for
review. Bring at least two or three copies of your essay for a peer-editing workshop. Be
prepared for detailed feedback and editing. Bring pencils so you can write editorial comments
on each other’s work. You should also post your “draft” on our web-site for follow-up peer
review comments.

 Final Draft due: 5-25

Post final draft of your essay on our program website. Put a hard
copy in your portfolio.

II. The Assignment:

As part of our work in this program, you will develop a “Sense of Place” essay (5-9 pages) that
you will revise, edit, and post for e-publication through our program website. We will do a number of free-
writing, research, grammar, and editing workshops. You may have a variety of pieces that you are working
on that you may also wish to share; however, we are encouraging you to develop one essay, through a
variety of drafts, to a final product.
This essay is designed to be a personal reflective essay. However, if you prefer, you can adapt the
assignment to write an expository essay, argumentative essay, or research paper. The choice is yours, as
long as you are clearly writing about “place,” and you are aware of the form of essay you are using.
However, you must complete all writing and editing workshops, nature writing/walking journals/blogs,
research projects, and post your final drafts on a web-site.
You will be forming writing groups over the quarter, to meet, discuss your writings, give feedback,
edit, and develop your work. These ongoing groups will meet in class, online, and in person throughout the
quarter. You are responsible for meeting and responding to the individuals within your writing group.

Overview:
During this quarter, we will be exposed to a number of writers who care deeply about the people and
places in their lives. They have a sense of passion and purpose about the local places they grew up in, and
about our global earth communities. How can you can get in touch with nature, like Linda Hogan, Henry
David Thoreau, John Muir, or the other writers we are reading? If you have connected deeply to people
and places, and can express your ideas clearly, your essays will carry more passion and purpose. As you
write from your own experience, you will establish credibility and invoke “pathos” or “feeling” in your
readers.
  To get started on your essay, you may want to discuss briefly who you are (eg. the eldest of three
Irish-American/ Hispanic-American children, where you were born, later lived, now live). Like John Muir,
have you had a peak experience with nature? Like Richard Louv, do you have vivid memories of your

1
This assignment was inspired through sample assignments and conversations with Olivia Archibald, Don
Foran, and Katheryn Byrd while I was working on the “Curriculum for the Bioregion: English.”
experience of nature as a child? Like Hogan and Thoreau, can you describe your physical environment at
some point when you were especially aware of nature and your environment?  Has that environment
changed? Is it likely to change? How do you feel about that change?  Will it be the same place it was?
What is lost or might be lost soon?  Describe the flora and fauna, animal life, your closeness to nature or
estrangement from it. It is important to use place names, natural history, special plants and animals.  Be as
specific and concrete as possible.

Pre-Writing, Free-Writing, Workshops, Research Etc.

We have been doing a number of writing activities, workshops, and “free-writing” sessions, both in
and outside of class, in order to develop ideas for our “Sense of Place” essay. Return to your drafts and
notes from these assignments to draw inspiration as you develop your personal essay about “place.”

 In-Class Writing Workshops

 Weekly “Walking, Writing, and Rolling” writing or blogging activities.
 “Sense of Place” Library Research
 Weekly reflections and reading responses.

Review these free-writing workshops and activities. Mark passages or sections that you might want
to weave into your essay.
As you work on your essay, you might continue to go outside and do a little exploring. As in our
other writing/walking activities, leave your cell phone, Ipod, and text messaging behind.  Listen, watch,
smell and see the natural world. Continue to develop a connection to the land, or recreate a connection that
you had in the past. Allow your connection to the natural world inspire your writing.
Go back to the library, or on line, to research plants and animals that you might want to discuss in
your essay. Find descriptions in field guides and take notes. Look at our text, Home Ground, to see how
other writers use specific words and language to evoke particular places.

III. Guidelines for Preparing Your “Sense of Place” Personal Essay

Objectives:
 To establish a clear focus and purpose for writing a personal essay about place.
 To skillfully integrate ideas from personal experience, course readings, writings, &
workshops, or other sources.
 To continue developing an authentic writer’s voice that is unique to you.
 To develop unified and coherent sentences and paragraphs in support of developing the topic
of your essay.
 To practice balancing both ideas and details in paragraph development.
 Work alone and in groups to edit your writing according to Modern Language Association
(MLA) conventions or other style guide prior to final submission for e-publication.

In preparing your essay, respond to the following questions

Review the essays and writing workshops that we have completed this quarter, to review how other writers
have crafted their essays using the following techniques.

1. Theme and Thesis

Does my essay have a title?

How does it begin and end?
What is my theme, and how do I develop it?
What kind of argument or purpose do I pose, (i.e. do I use an implicit or explicit argument)?

2. Detail and Description:

--Do I use descriptive language to develop detail so that readers can see what I see, hear what I hear, smell
what I smell, taste what I taste, or feel what I feel?
--Am I able to use careful descriptive detail to draw people into specific scenes?
--Have I chosen specific words to carefully describe peoples, places, things, or events?
--Have I studied this subject or situation carefully? What else can I do to describe it?

3. Reflection and Synthesis:

--Have I honestly expressed my feelings, thinking, and convictions using the power of my voice, personal
experience, and reflection? Do I convey the veracity or credibility of my own experience and authority?
--Do I use the power and wisdom of my personal experience to create meaning for myself and reader?
--Have I used observation, recollection, and outside sources to develop my ideas?
How have I used quotes, embedded stories, research, or other relevant information into my text in
meaningful ways?
--Why is this subject or situation worthwhile for me and others to understand?
--What are some interesting conclusions that I can draw about this subject or situation?

4. Structuring the Essay

--Do I move from “close up” description of a subject or scene, to an “over-all” central idea or theme?
--Do I move carefully from
one idea to the next,
one paragraph to the next,
one sentence to the next?
--Do I illustrate general ideas with specific details?
--Do I illustrate specific details with general ideas?
--Do I use descriptive language and details to engage my reader?
--Do I use figurative language to clarify or emphasize important details?
Examples could be:
--Metaphor: Comparing two things with each other, so that the reader makes a deeper
connection to both, or sees one thing in relationship to another.
--Simile--Comparing two things that are dissimilar using the words “like” or “as.”
--Using specific, concrete details to represent abstract ideas or symbolic meanings.

--What is the most effective way that I can present my ideas to the reader? --Have I
structured my overall essay, my paragraphs, and my sentences to meet this goal?

5. Style and Usage:

Is my language clear and concise?

Have I edited out all clutter or unnecessary words?
Have I carefully chosen my words to reflect the ideas and meaning I want to convey?
Do I use a variety of sentence types (simple, compound, and complex) for emphasis, and to engage my
reader?
Have I carefully edited my writing for grammatical errors?

What other elements of good writing should I develop and be aware of?