Download 351 Seminar: Writing About American Society

SMITH COLLEGE Spring 2015
AMS 351 / ENG 384
Writing About American Society: “The Climate of the Country”
Class meets Tuesdays 1:00 - 2:50 p.m. in 310 Seelye.
Dava Sobel
205 Pierce
585-3108
[email protected]
Office Hours:
1 - 2 p.m. Monday
3 - 5 p.m. Tuesday
Also by appointment.
This course invites you to combine your interest in writing with your
concerns about climate change. Class discussions will explore the attitudes of
American society toward the weather and humanity’s role in changing it.
In addition to the books listed on the next page, I will provide handouts of
articles, poems, and other relevant readings. You will be asked to monitor
several news sources on your own for a weekly exchange of ideas and
information. Writing assignments will include an account of a memorable
weather event, an analysis of a historic and disruptive weather situation, a
profile of a personality in the current climate dialogue, and a personal
weather log.
Your grade will depend on your contributions to class discussions,
completion of assignments in a timely manner, and willingness to rewrite as
needed. I expect to meet with you for frequent individual conferences to
discuss your writing.
I have invited three authors to visit the class as guest speakers. Outside
events planned by various campus groups for this semester will no doubt
further augment the course content as we contemplate the current and longterm effects of climate change.
The following outline is necessarily incomplete, as I will shape the course
partly in response to your interests, needs, and aspirations.
Readings
As you read, flag sections that you judge excellent or terrible. Copy out a few
paragraphs from each book, and note what you liked (or didn’t like) about them.
Required texts
Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway, The Collapse of Western Civilization
Handouts
Assigned / agreed upon news sources
Suggested texts (read at least two of these by the end of March)
Diane Ackerman The Human Age
Brian Adams Love in the Time of Climate Change
Paul Bogard The End of Night
Rachel Carson Silent Spring
Michael Crichton State of Fear
Annie Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Kerry Emanuel What We Know About Climate Change, Divine Wind
Sheri Fink Five Days at Memorial
Al Gore An Inconvenient Truth
James Hansen Storms of My Grandchildren
Sebastian Junger The Perfect Storm
Naomi Klein This Changes Everything
Elizabeth Kolbert The Sixth Extinction, Notes from a Catastrophe
Jon Krakauer Into the Wild
Erik Larson Isaac’s Storm
Aldo Leopold A Sand County Almanac
Bill McKibben End of Nature
John McPhee The Control of Nature
David Michaels Doubt Is Their Product
Jonathan Mingle Fire and Ice
John Muir My First Summer in the Sierra, The Yosemite
Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway Merchants of Doubt
Gavin Pretor-Pinney The Cloudspotter’s Guide
Carl Sagan The Demon-Haunted World
Stuart Schwartz Sea of Storms
Paul Steinberg Who Rules the Earth?
Ida Tarbell The History of the Standard Oil Company
Carol Tavris Mistakes Were Made But Not by Me
Theophrastus of Eresus Book of Signs
Henry David Thoreau Walden
Gabrielle Walker An Ocean of Air
Spencer Weart The Discovery of Global Warming
Alan Weisman The World Without Us, Countdown
E. O. Wilson Naturalist, Letters to a Young Scientist
Paddy Woodworth Our Once and Future Planet
Assignments
1. Weather Memory: Write an account of a memorable weather event that you
experienced. Try to recreate the scene, recalling who was with you and how you felt
at the time. Tell why you think the incident stays with you.
2. Historic Event and its Aftermath: Research and write about a historic weather
event, such as the 1900 Galveston hurricane or the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Look at
the phenomenon in terms of the typical weather for that region in that season. Also
consider the public reaction and social consequences.
3. Profile: Choose an individual to research and write about—a scientist, an activist,
a politician, an environmentalist—someone whose ideas about climate change
either appeal to you or horrify you. Create a profile that gives a sense of this
individual’s life journey, personal code of ethics, vision, and role in society.
4. Personal Weather Log: Make daily entries about the weather in a personal log.
Include your emotional weather, or the weather’s effects on your moods. This log
can start out as a sentence or two per day. As you think more about issues of
weather and climate, use this space to develop your ideas for further research or
action. Feel free to change the log format as you go along, and see whether it morphs
into something more interesting to you, perhaps worth continuing after class ends
in May. The full term’s weather log will constitute your “final project.”
You will note I have not stipulated word lengths (negotiable) or formats (essays as
opposed to screen plays) for any of these assignments. Given that this is a writingintensive class, I want to leave room for creativity in approach and ample
opportunity for re-writing.
Due dates:
Feb. 10 – Weather Memory
Feb. 17 – Revised Weather Memory
Mar. 10 – Historic Event
Mar. 24 – Revised Historic Event
Apr. 7 – Profile
Apr. 14 – Revised Profile
Apr. 21 – Weather Log
Weekly outline
27 January (#1) CLASSES CANCELED DUE TO WINTER STORM JUNO.
3 February (#2) WEATHER V. CLIMATE Talking about the weather, identifying
reliable sources of information, following the stories, taking time to write...
10 February (#3) GLOBAL WARMING V. CLIMATE CHANGE Gauging societal
attitudes about climate change, weather words, story ideas and approaches...
17 February (#4) THE WEATHERMAN, THE SCIENTIST, AND THE STORM
CHASER Personalities in the climate debate, framing interview questions, effective use
of statistics and quotations...
24 February (#5) RECORD HIGHS AND LOWS Assessing climate trends in history,
organizing research materials...
3 March (#6) LOCAL FLOODING Setting the scene, describing local color...
10 March (#7) THE GLOBAL ATMOSPHERE Visit from Jonathan Mingle, author of
Fire and Ice.
17 March – No class (Spring Break)
24 March (#8) A CHANGE OF SEASON Observable effects of climate change, using
structure to interweave story lines...
31 March (#9) BETWEEN GROUNDHOG DAY AND EARTH DAY Coopting
observances, reporting events...
7 April (#10) SUSTAINABILITY IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: A POET’S
PERSPECTIVE Visit from Diane Ackerman, author of The Human Age.
14 April (#11) ACTION AND INACTION Government and individual response to
climate change, peer editing exercises...
21 April (#12) FINDING THE HUMOR IN GLOOM Visit from Brian Adams, author of
Love in the Time of Climate Change.
28 April (#13) OUTLOOK Forecasting future directions, discovering your own
voice...