Course Syllabus

ENGL 2420 Literature of the Outdoors

Course Description

ENGL 2420 is a survey of literature addressing the experiences of people and their relationship with the natural (more-than-human) environment. How non-human nature is understood, used, and represented in human cultures—as material resource, spiritual and aesthetic inspiration, scientific laboratory, site for recreation, etc.—in many ways defines these cultures and individuals. This course is designed to help students become more aware of the complexities of our relationship with the outdoors by surveying a variety of literatures that deal with these themes.

Justification

This class fulfills the Humanities (HU) general education requirement. Most institutions of higher learning in the state, and increasingly across the country, have a similar literature course. As a small, rural, residential college, Snow is uniquely positioned to offer our students this immersive literature course, where GE and Humanities outcomes are integrated through work and experience in the classroom and in the field. There is also demand for such a course in the humanities from students in Snow's Natural Resources, Outdoor Leadership, and other related programs. The humanities are a group of academic disciplines that study the many ways by which humans have attempted to understand themselves and their world. Environmental humanities, as a growing field of study, has also developed a wide range of approaches attending specifically to questions of the human in the more-than-human world. At Snow College, the humanities focus on cultural traditions that are expressed largely through texts or which have a strong textual component: languages, literature, and philosophy. The methods by which the humanities study culture are at once analytical and interpretive, objective and subjective, historical and aesthetic.

General Education Outcomes

1. A student who completes the GE curriculum has a fundamental knowledge of human cultures and the natural world. Students will recognize how non-human nature, or the "outdoors," has been variously defined and understood (culturally, aesthetically, ethically, legally) in western literary traditions, the ways in which this has changed over time, and how this compares to various other global traditions. Students will demonstrate an understanding of how our relationship with the more-than-human environment is constantly shaped and mediated by language, narrative, rhetoric, text, and other media, as well as immediate experience, through exams and writing assignments. Students will be able to articulate in exams, short responses, and/or essays the roles that race, class, gender, and other forms of identity and privilege play in how people are able to access, experience, and interact with their outdoor environment.
2. A student who completes the GE curriculum can read and research effectively within disciplines. Students read a variety of original outdoor literature texts and are quizzed on content. Students will use the Web and other resources and media to research and learn about outdoor experience in various places and of various types. Students will become aware of different issues facing different outdoor/environment-oriented constituencies in terms of land use, ethics in practice, and conflicts. Students will demonstrate careful and critical reading skills on quizzes, exams, discussion, and writing assignments.
3. A student who completes the GE curriculum can draw from multiple disciplines to address complex problems. Students will have the opportunity to explore assigned materials demonstrating relationships between literary, scientific, historical, religious, policy, artistic, musical, and/or other texts. Assignments and activities will require students to demonstrate recognition of various relationships between these disciplines, and the value of integrating knowledge areas to understand and address
4. A student who completes the GE curriculum can reason analytically, critically, and creatively. Students will read and explore texts that relate stories, propose ways of regarding, explore issues and questions, and present implicit and explicit arguments about our relationship with the natural world. Using various modes and strategies, students will also complete assignments allowing them to practice and develop their own aesthetic, rational, critical judgments and analyses, supporting these with evidence from course texts, personal experience and observation, current events, etc.
5. A student who completes the GE curriculum can communicate effectively through writing and speaking. Discussion questions, writing prompts, writing assignments, and individual/group projects/presentations are part of this class, and are designed to allow for the demonstration of knowledge and understanding, and to reflect personal experience. Writing assignments and/or course projects may be completed and submitted in a traditional manner, posted online, and/or shared with classmates using various media. The writing process will be emphasized throughout the course, including the need for careful revision and proofing.

General Education Knowledge Area Outcomes

1. Students will apply philosophical and theoretical issues to their own experience and will write persuasively to defend particular positions in short writing assignments and longer term papers. Students will demonstrate on exams how attitudes about the outdoors vary from culture to culture and have changed over time. Students will apply philosophical and theoretical issues to their own experience and will write persuasively to defend particular positions in short writing assignments and longer term papers. Students will demonstrate on exams how attitudes about the outdoors vary from culture to culture and have changed over time.
2. Understand how knowledge is created through the study of language systems, literature, and/or philosophy. Students will compare written and visual knowledge systems pertinent to the natural environment and will write various assignments demonstrating their understanding of similarities and differences. Students will examine how conventional literary forms, as well as texts like guidebooks, maps, satellite imagery and/or verbal communication have evolved over time and mediated how people experience the outdoors in different ways. They will demonstrate this understanding through exams, writing, journal entries, and/or class discussions. Through outdoor/nature experiences, students will understand the importance of natural settings in literature.
3. Understand cultural traditions within an historical context and make connections with the present. Students will be exposed to various human attitudes about the environment (currently and locally, as well as historically and globally) through a survey of literature that focuses on these themes. Students will be examined on how types of outdoor experience (survival, labor, recreation, contemplation, etc.) and literary representations of that experience have changed over time. Students will write about their own experience in notes, journal entries, rough drafts, and revised essays.
4. Critically read and respond to primary texts (original, uninterpreted) from a Humanities’ perspective. Students will gain an understanding of various traditions of outdoor writing by reading primary and secondary texts. These may include a survey of American and world nature writing (narrative, poetry, essay, etc.), frontier and explorations texts, literature of outdoor recreation, environmental literary criticism/theory, and other outdoor pursuits with strong literary histories. Students may also learn about the development of philosophies and ethics regarding the natural world through a related literature survey. Examinations and other assignments will assess student learning. Students will also write on and/or otherwise document (draw, photograph, record, film, etc.) their own experience in the outdoors, thereby creating their own primary texts.
5. Write effectively within the Humanities discipline to analyze and form critical and aesthetic judgments. Students will learn the various steps in writing about outdoor experiences from sketching, taking photographs and notes, to drafting and polishing essays that represent their experiences to readers. Students will demonstrate critical and/or creative writing skills through essay assignments and visual presentations. Students will have the opportunity to revise using feedback from others.

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Ask and explore a variety of philosophical and theoretical questions about human thought and experience.
2. Understand how knowledge is created through the study of language systems, literature, and/or philosophy.
3. Understand cultural traditions within a historical context and make connections with the present.
4. Critically read and respond to a variety of primary texts from a Humanities perspective.
5. Write effectively within the Humanities tradition to analyze and form critical and aesthetic judgments.

Course Content

Through a combination of lecture, class discussion, reading, visual/audio/visual/etc. media, and field studies, the course will focus on current and historical attitudes toward nature, land ethics, and representation of the outdoors in literature. While the focus will largely be American literature (perhaps in particular, on local terms), attention will also be paid to global outdoor issues, and texts representative of other (including non-western) cultural traditions, attitudes, and beliefs. A significant part of the class will attend to the roles human identity have played and continue to play in how people are able to access, experience, and interact with their environment, and the roles played by literary representation in depicting and shaping cultural attitudes and political policy about these relationships. Readings will range from non-fiction (essay, memoir, historical and policy documents, etc.), to fiction, poetry, and other creative and literary genres; these will include several full-length texts as well as several shorter selections. The course is both reading and writing intensive.