Understanding ecological diversity; analyzing humanity's role in the health of the biotic community; recognizing the importance of sustainability; and communicating effectively to particular audiences.

Big ideas-students will:

• understand ecological diversity
• analyze humanity's role in the health of the biotic community
• recognize the importance of sustainability
• communicate effectively

Academic objectives-students will:

• learn to make careful observations of the biotic and cultural elements of the local community, including how the two interact
• engage with the complexity of environmental issues on a local and global scale
• perform primary and secondary research
• read and write a variety of documents
• read each other's work and give useful comments and suggestions
• participate in class discussions and present finished work orally to the class

Writing objectives-students will:

• consider purpose, audience, and genre
• engage in free-writing and outlining
• compose effective thesis statements
• write unified, coherent, well-developed paragraphs
• incorporate quotes into their writing and compose a Works Cited in MLA format
• revise and edit their work

Sustainability objectives-students will:

• learn what is important to the ecological and cultural health of a place
• discover their impact on their own biotic and cultural communities
• research what threatens this health, locally and globally
• explore what they can do to live more sustainable lives
• explain what grassroots organizations they might join to persuade others to live more sustainable lives

Purpose:This activity is designed for English 102, a research-based composition class. Its purpose is to increase student awareness and understanding of local environmental issues, develop skills in research and writing, and inspire personal action. The rationale for building the assignments as I have is to emphasize the personal investment, desire to act, and sense of hope that often accompanies successful grassroots activism.

Rationale: In the past, I have found that students' first reaction to a discussion of environmental issues is a combination of cynicism, defensiveness, and apathy. Many students feel like outsiders with no stake in the problem or power to bring about a real solution. Told by local and national authorities (school, media, and government) that they are to blame for gigantic problems like global climate change; many either are crushed under the burden of ecological responsibility or rebel against being blamed for a global crisis that is older than they are. In order to develop a more hopeful, active approach, this teaching-and-learning activity begins with an assignment celebrating the students' connection to a local place and ends with what they personally can do to combat local and global threats to this place, their home.

Possible Use In Other Courses: sociology, ecology, or cultural anthropology class (or a learning community).

Timeframe

This activity will take an entire quarter. It includes scholarly and creative texts, class discussion, primary research (observations and interviews), secondary research, analytical and creative writing assignments, and an oral presentation. Certainly, however, the pamphlet or research paper could be assigned as a stand-alone assignment.

Assignments

Students describe in a pamphlet what makes their home (house, neighborhood, tribe, city, or region) ecologically healthy and culturally rich. Next, they analyze in a research essay what threatens the health, vitality, and beauty of that place, sharing their findings in oral presentations to the class. Finally, they explore in a reflection paper ways they can live a more environmentally and culturally sustainable lifestyle.

The Learning Activities

Week 1:The students read an essay and a sample pamphlet that focus on the health of a particular place and emphasize humanity's positive interaction and investment in our biotic communities. The students also read an essay about conducting an interview and begin to contact people they might interview for the pamphlet assignment. The class discusses the readings with the goal of identifying what is home for the students (a student's household, neighborhood, tribe, city, or region) and defining what it means for that place to be healthy (not only ecologically, but also culturally, socially, economically, and politically). The first writing assignment is a journal describing what is beautiful and vital about their home, which they will discuss in class the next day.

Week 2: The students read additional essays and stories (and look at more sample pamphlets). Each composes an outline of an informative pamphlet that describes the student's home and what makes it healthy to a first-time visitor. Students should conduct their interviews this week.

Week 3: The students turn in a transcript of a 15-minute interview conducted with someone who lives or works in the student's "home." The class discusses what the interviews reveal and how they can be used in the pamphlet assignment. At the end of the week, the each student turns in a rough draft of the pamphlet, which includes the student's observations, a few short quotes from the interview, a graphic (picture, table, graph), and perhaps a small amount of secondary research (statistics/details).

Week 4: The students discuss their work and engage in peer review. They turn in revised drafts of their pamphlets at the end of the week. On the due date, students will read two pamphlets they have not read before and hand-write a review of the assignment: its process and products (due at the end of class that day).

Week 5:The students read and discuss essays about the local and global threats to the health of our region. They compose a research plan for the research essay. This essay will analyze the ecological and cultural threats to the student's "home."

Weeks 6-7:The students perform both primary and secondary research. Each week they write two short summaries of sources they found, discussing them with classmates and turning them in for grades. Also, individual student conferences with the instructor.

Week 8: The students compose rough drafts of research essay.

Week 9: The students engage in peer review and turn in revised drafts of their research essays at the end of the week.

Week 10: The students present their findings orally and visually to the class. Each student takes notes and provides written feedback to the other student presenters in their peer review group.
The students also read Fostering Sustainable Behavior, which describes how to live a more sustainable lifestyle, including composting, recycling, growing one's own vegetables, etc.

Week 11: The students write a reflection paper that explores ways to combat the threats identified in the research paper and makes the "home" an even healthier place.

Welcome to My Home Grading Rubric (Microsoft Word 28kB Nov4 11)

Be sure to have sample pamphlets for the students and direct them to have a particular audience in mind when composing their own pamphlets. Be sure they develop the action section of the final essay, rather than focusing on the threats and then tacking on a paragraph of what action they can take as merely a conclusion.

Include texts by local authors and about local places/ecosystems.

Major assignments (see attached Grading Rubric):

• Pamphlet
• Research Essay
• Reflection Paper
• Oral Presentation

Additional assignments:

• In-class papers: one-minute papers, assignment reviews
• Journal entries based on readings
• Interview transcript
• Annotated Bibliography
• Summaries of documents researched
• Outlines & Free-writes
• Rough drafts
• Peer reviews

Students will be encouraged to utilize Peninsula College's Center of Excellence for information on local ecological research and expertise. They will read published documents and Peninsula College student blogs, and conduct interviews of students and faculty. In addition to interviewing members of the community as part of their research gathering, students will use library resources, including online databases.

Texts

"Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Where I Lived, and What I Lived For" by Henry David Thoreau
"A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett
"The Land Ethic" by Aldo Leopold
"Wilderness Letter" by Wallace Stegner
"Getting Along with Nature" by Wendell Berry
"Water Wars: Bottling Up the World's Supply of H20" by Joshua Ortega
"Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination" by Leslie Marmon Silko
"Fostering Sustainable Behavior" by Doug McKenzie Mohr and William Smith (1999)

Texts about the Olympic Peninsula:
"Working the Land, Working the Sea" (an anthology of Olympic Peninsula writings)
"The Final Forest" by William Dietrich
"Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula: Who We Are" by Jacilee Wray
Poetry by Jody Aliesan, Alice Derry, Tom Jay
"A Natural History of Olympic National Park" by Tim Mc Nulty

Websites

Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe http://www.elwha.org/
Olympic National Park http://www.nps.gov/olym/index.htm
Clallam County Marine Resources Committee http://www.clallam.net/ccmrc/