Writing Nature:
An Ecological Reader for Writers
by Carolyn Ross
 
An Abbreviated,
Illustrated, and Annotated
 Table of Contents

PART I: Explorations

PART III: Narrations

PART IV: Investigations

Chapter 1: Journals and Letters

Chapter 4: Personal Narratives: Flights of Fact

Chapter 7: Concepts of Nature, Science, and Technology

PART II: Descriptions

Chapter 5: Fictional Accounts: Flights of Fancy

Chapter 8: Issue by Issue: Three Reading Cycles: Land Use, Animal Rights, and Genetic Engineering

Chapter 2: Descriptions of Places and Living Things

Chapter 6: Histories

APPENDIX

Chapter 3: Descriptions of Process

Weaving the Threads: An Overview of the Research Process

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Chapter 1: Journals and Letters

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€ 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photograph of Henry David Thoreau taken on 18 June 1856 at the "Daguerrean Palace" of Benjamin D. Maxham, Worcester, Massachusetts

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Chapter 2: Descriptions of Places and Living Things

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€ 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

 

 

 

 

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Chapter 3: Descriptions of Process

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€ 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

© Chris LaRocco and Blair Rothstein <http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/bigbang.htm/>

Muir beside the Merced River, Royal Arches and Washington Column in background. Photograph thought to have been taken by one of the Carr family, circa 1908. (Go to <http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/> for more.)

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Chapter 4: Personal Narratives

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€ 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

 

 

 

 

 

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Chapter 5: Fictional Accounts

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€ 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

From "Seasons of the Ansarac." Forthcoming Spring 2003. Illustrated by Ken Nutt <http://www.infinitematrix.net/stories/shorts/seasons_of_ansarac.html>. See LeGuin's site at <http://www.ursulakleguin.com/>

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Chapter 6: Histories

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€ 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

 

 

 

 

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Chapter 7: Concepts of Nature, Science, and Technology

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€ 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

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Reading Cycle #1: Land Use

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

 

Figures are from "Historical Interrelationships Between Population Settlement and Farmland in the Conterminous United States, 1790 to 1992" by Margaret Maizel, National Center for Resource Innovations-Chesapeake, Inc., ncri@idt.net; Denis White, Oregon State University, Geosciences Department, denis@mercury.cor.epa.gov; Ralph Root U.S. Geological Survey Center for Biological Informatics, ralph_root@usgs.gov; Stuart Gage, Michigan State University, Department of Entomology, gages@pilot.msu.edu; Susan Stitt U.S. Geological Survey Center for Biological Informatics, susan_stitt@usgs.gov; Leon Osborne, Regional Weather Information Center University of North Dakota, leono@rwic.und.edu; andGeorge Muehlbach, GIS Coordinator, NCRI-Chesapeake, Inc.,ncri@idt.net <http://biology.usgs.gov/luhna/chap2.html>

People for Animal Rights (PAR) <http://www.parkc.org/index.html>

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Reading Cycle #2: Animal Rights

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

 

 

 

 

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Reading Cycle #3: Genetic Engineering

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

<http://www.genengnews.com/>