Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Brian Doyle/Annie Dillard-Nature Writing


Brian Doyle/Annie Dillard-Nature Writing

AGENDA:

EQ: According to Brian Doyle’s essay, “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever, how should the ideal nature essay develop and affect the reader”? Do Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels” and Doyle’s “Fishering” measure up to the criteria Doyle presents? 

http://mikelennox.com/ArtworkWeb/Weasel.jpg

 Read aloud Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels” and discuss basic questions: 
1. Why does Annie Dillard use the account about the weasel fixed by the jaws to the eagle’s throat? What does this suggest about a weasel’s life and what is Dillard trying to suggest about our lives, including her own? 
2. Is it possible for humans to “live any way we want”? Can we live like the weasel? Or in what ways are we able to live like the weasel? 
3. Analyze the author’s use of figurative language to achieve her purpose. 
4. Any echoes of Thoreau’s “Where I Lived”? 
Link: http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG200-lad/dillard.htm 

Silently read Brian Doyle’s “Fishering” and annotate it. 
Link: http://www.hcn.org/issues/317/16163

  

PERIOD TWO (Rm. 238): In small groups, read Brian Doyle’s “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever.” 
Link: https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-greatest-nature-essay-ever/ 

As a group, determine the criteria/formula for successful nature writing according to Doyle’s essay and answer the following question, providing specific examples from the texts: 

Do you think that the organization of Dillard’s nature essay on weasels is similar to the organization of Doyle’s “Fishering”? Does it follow the formula from “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever”?

Please post a comment indicating some of the topics you could explore for a nature essay.
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12 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:37 AM

    - Contact with wildife/domestic animals
    - First time seeing plants grow
    - Tending to a garden
    - Seeing fruit grow for the first time
    - First time hiking in the woods

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:40 AM

    1. Swimming in the ocean for the first time.
    2. Dealing with the death of a pet.
    3. My first fish.
    4. Apple picking.
    5. Fishing with my grandfather.
    6. Zoo animals.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:41 AM

    the nature outside
    the way the sun sets
    the way the sun comes down
    a empty field
    the beach
    places thats outside that humans tend to overlook

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:42 AM

    When I lived in Mt Morris near Letchworth State Park in the early spring we good and fed the dears we seen.
    When I go to my lake house every summer I fish and one summer the neighbor that was in the house next to us. Paid me five dollars for every fish I caught. I caught about 20 that day right in front of our cottage.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:44 AM

    A topic that I feel I would deeply resonate with while writing a nature essay would be an urban nature setting and how humans interact with it as well as with animals or any living things. This would come easy to me because of my job as an Urban Ecologist.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:44 AM

    I think I am going to write about ants and how when I was younger my brother and I would try and stop the kids at school from killing them. What is it about them that made us want to save them? Why are they targeted by elementary school kids? How do they instinctively work as a collective?

    I could also write about swimming with fishes. The idea of it freaks me out. I don't like the feeling of them swimming by me, but when I force myself to go underwater and look at them it becomes less scary. Why is that?

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:45 AM

    Madison:
    - Sitting in the woods in New Mexico while trying to listen to everything
    - having a bear come up to us and having to abandon campsite
    - swinging from the rope into a pond and now the rope was removed
    - climbing to the top of a mountain and then breaking my tailbone
    - jumping into the 13 feet deep lake
    - exploring our island--finding turtle eggs
    - almost sitting on a snake
    - canoeing on a lake and stalking loons and otters
    - climbing in acadia and getting lost on the way back
    - my love-hate relationship with dogs

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:47 AM

    `Grow my own herbs (food)
    `See a cheetah or hold a monkey
    `I imagine being in the forest would be like
    `Have a conversation with a Parrot

    ReplyDelete
  9. Vale ViauFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:47 AM

    - about pet essay
    - pond violation by a frog (maybe its growth too)
    - friendship/connection with certain trees
    - GCVM experiences

    Those are my essay ideas for now.

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:48 AM

    As soon as I heard about nature essays, the first thing I thought of was Bhutan. Bhutan is very strict on preserving the nature and environment of Bhutan and I have been to some a lot of reserved parks and have seen the beauty of nature. I could write about how Bhutan is preserving nature and how Bhutan sets an example. I could also write about a camp I attended over the weekend as it was very nature based and was in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut.

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  11. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:55 AM

    feeding stingrays
    owning my first pet
    planting

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2020 at 8:56 AM

    I was thinking of talking about what it's like in a swamp, in the mountains or in the tops of trees. Maybe discussing what animals live their and how high the mountains or the trees are or talking about how complex life in a swamp is. I don't know how I would connect it to my own personal experiences but those were just interesting topics to me.

    ReplyDelete

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