WRITING NATURE: 
THINKING AND WRITING ABOUT NATURE AND IDENTITY

Here you will find an abbreviated Table of Contents of Writing Nature: An Ecological Reader for Writers by Carolyn Ross (St. Martin's Press, 1995). This is the primary text for the course "Writing Nature."

Part I. EXPLORATIONS: THE LANDSCAPE AND LANGUAGE OF DISCOVERY

Chapter 1: Journals and Letters

€ Rhetoric: Engaging in Reading and Writing

€ Readings: Mapping Exploration

Selections by Meriwether Lewis, John Muir, Isabella Bird, Peter Matthiessen, Ivan Doig, and student writer Todd Dickson

Part III. OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS: LOOKING AT NATURE, SEEING OURSELVES

Chapter 2: Descriptions of Places and Living Things

€ Rhetoric: Traveling from Subject to Central Idea

€ Readings: The Subject in Nature

Selections by John James Audubon, Henry David Thoreau, Richard Wright, N. Scott Momaday, Lewis Thomas, John McPhee, Ursula K. Le Guin and student writer Kiran Pandeya

Chapter 3: Descriptions of Process

€ Rhetoric: Developing Ideas and Purpose in Writing

€ Readings: Processes Natural and Unnatural

Selections by Rachel Carson, Noel Perrin, Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich Maxine Kumin, and student writer Liz Clabaugh

Part III. NARRATIONS: HUMAN ENCOUNTERS WITH THE NATURAL WORLD

Chapter 4: Personal Narratives

€ Rhetoric: Writing about Personal Experience

€ Readings: Flights of Fact

Selections by Henry Bibb, John Muir, Sue Hubbell, Nancy Mairs, David Quammen, Alice Walker, and student writer Amelia Hughart

Chapter 5: Fictional Accounts

€ Rhetoric: Writing about Literature

€ Readings: Flights of Fancy

Selections by Aldous Huxley, Loren Eiseley, M. F. K. Fisher, Ursula K. Le Guin, Barry Lopez, and student writer Jennifer Donaldson

Chapter 6: Histories

€ Rhetoric: Writing about Historical Events

€ Readings: Perspectives on Collective Experience

Selections from Genesis, Pomo Indian mythology, and by Wallace and Page Stegner, Noel Perrin, Leslie Marmon Silko, and student writer Kevin Cunningham

Part IV. INVESTIGATIONS: ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES, SOCIAL DILEMMAS

Chapter 7: Concepts of Nature, Science, and Technology

€ Rhetoric: Reasoning

€ Readings: Points of Reference

Selections by Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Burroughs, Aldo Leopold, Lewis Thomas, Joyce Carol Oates, and student writer Benjamin Jun

Chapter 8: Issue by Issue: Three Reading Cycles

€ Rhetoric: Investigating and Arguing

€ Readings: Conflicts of Interest

Land Use

Selections by Sharman Apt Russell, Edward Abbey, Cynthia Riggs, and student writer By Pham

Animal Rights

Selections by Peter Singer, David Quammen, and student writer Anne Pollock

Genetic Engineering

Selections by Amy Virshup, Jeremy Rifkin, Stephen Jay Gould, and student writer Jennifer Harris

APPENDIX

Weaving the Threads: An Overview of the Research Process

Sample research paper by student writer Zach Perron