This set of activities focuses on writing skills in description, narration, arrangement, juxtaposition, and reflection, and sustainability concepts linked to place as a living and changing bios impacted by human society.

Students are encouraged to perceive specific locations within our bioregion as having a life that includes past, present, and future. These activities present ideas for wedding the teaching of "craft" with the teaching of sustainability.

Oregon writer, teacher, and literary critic Kim Stafford has explored the idea of "place as a story happening many times" (see Resources). This teaching-and-learning activity framework is aimed to inspire educators who seek methods for fostering student awareness of place and sustainability in the imaginative writing classroom. It presents ideas for wedding the teaching of "craft" with the teaching of sustainability. Through these practices, students are encouraged to perceive specific locations within our bioregion as having a life that includes past, present, and future-that is, seeing a specific place as meaningful in a layered way: seeing one site as a story happening many times, and within (or without) the larger frame of sustainability.

This sequence of activities could be adapted for use in the middle or at the end of an introductory course (after imaginative writing basics such as imagery, scene, character, and dialog have been introduced and explored). The sequence could be introduced earlier in advanced fiction, or could be the core project of a seminar on writing about place. These activities would take a minimum of one week of class time; if utilized with contextualizing materials (for instance, reading one of the suggested novels, or expanding on an archive research project) the project could expand into several weeks.

In-class directions to learners / Part 1:

"Freewrite, using as many of your senses as possible, to describe a place in our region that you feel particularly connected to or that you are beginning to know well. This could be a park, a stream, a street, a building, a lake, a yard, an island-any natural or built space that you can still vividly see, hear, smell, and touch with your memory. Write about it in present tense, accumulating as many images as possible for this specific setting." (15 minutes)

Alternative: For a course planned for international students or immigrant students, consider the feasibility of an initial field trip to a common space (even on campus). Ask students to freewrite with as much detail as possible in order to perceive and convey a sense of place in the moment.

In-class directions to learners / Part 2:

"Now imagine that same setting one to two hundred years ago, and that you are a character alive in that era and experiencing that site. If your site was a street or building, imagine what existed before it was built. If you remembered a stream or lake, how might it have been different in the past? Think for a few minutes about who the character is encountering this place. You might imagine one of your own relatives, if your family has a history in this region.

For Instructors
"Or here are some other ideas" (write on board):
A scientist or explorer, such as David Douglas An indigenous person, perhaps living nearby
A painter, like Emily Carr A settler or homesteader
A Chinese railroad laborer A traveler from a big Eastern city

"Write to describe how this character experiences the setting through seeing, touching, listening, tasting, smelling it. Think about how the character's work, age, gender, religious practice, and race might filter or shape his or her perceptions." (20 to 30 minutes)

"What do you discover you do not know, and need to know, in order to write about this place in the past?" As a class, brainstorm ideas for research and exploration. What role can the instructor play in providing overviews and resources?

Students are assigned a modest amount of research before the next class meeting (the nature and amount of research could be expanded for more advanced courses): "What information can you find online, in a local library, or by asking family members or other personal resources, about the past history of the setting you selected? Using this information, rework and revise your second in-class freewrite into a 1-2 page typed description of setting through the point of view of your chosen character."

At the next class meeting, students read these short assignments aloud and peers are asked to point out who they think the "character" might be and what evidence from how the setting is portrayed tells them so. The instructor works actively to highlight student work that engages with setting in both a human and historically accurate manner.

For the last 20 minutes of class (or at the next meeting), students are asked to engage in a third freewriting activity about setting:

In-class directions to learners / Part 3:

"Now imagine that same site three generations in the future-as experienced by a documentarian who is living in the age your great-grandchild would be. People who make documentaries are interested in stories. This documentarian wants to tell the story of your place. What is still important about this place? How has it changed? What is meaningful here? Write about the story this place might tell, in present tense, through the perspective of the documentarian." (20 to 30 minutes)

At the next class (or, if this exercise began a class meeting, in the next segment of class time), students form small groups and read "Part 3" freewriting aloud to their peers. Peers are instructed to comment on the following:
Is this imagined future believable to you as an audience?

Did the writer express the "future" setting vividly enough that you felt you experienced it?
Did the writer succeed in finding a story that the documentarian discovers about the setting? Do you see any other potential stories in this setting that the writer might consider as well?

Students are assigned to draft a short story at home:

Story assignment: "For the next class meeting's workshop, draft a braided narrative (1,000 to 1,500 words) that tells the story of your chosen place. A braided narrative is one that juxtaposes or collages the points of view of more than one character, without transition and not necessarily in chronological order. Using the three points of view you have already developed through freewriting, explore the effects of arranging these strands in different ways and to different effects: what arrangement of these voices best allows the story of your setting to speak in the most interesting way? What kinds of tension or energy are created by the different perceptions of the setting? What do you want your reader to understand about your chosen place, through your arrangement of voices? Bring four copies of your draft to class for peer-group workshop; bring one copy to turn in."

This activity could be paired back considerably into a one-day imaginative writing exercise that asks the learner to simply imagine one setting in a variety of temporal concepts- or it could be expanded into the main project or an entire seminar. Please modify and adapt these notions in ways that seem practical and worthwhile for your own students and their circumstances.

When I teach a writing workshop, I do not grade individual assignments. Instead, I give students considerable feedback and ask them to consider whether this draft would work well as a project to revise for their graded portfolio. As students revise for the portfolio, the directions for each original assignment (including topic, length, form) can be left behind- students are asked to think actively about how they define "good writing," and how their best work embodies their definitions. Teaching on this model, success in this project comes with a substantial number of the students remaining engaged with the idea of a place or setting as a story, and continuing to revise work in a way that draws them closer and closer to understanding the meaning of sustainability, while also sharpening their skills with description, arrangement, and narrative.

Teachers may want to investigate local resources such as community libraries, museums, and archives. I recommend pairing the imaginative writing activities with the assignment of one or more literary texts (or the instructor could use excerpts from them to demonstrate concepts such as the braided narrative in regional historical fictions).

Suggested Texts:
Kim Stafford, Having Everything Right
Ursula LeGuin, Always Coming Home
Daphne Marlatt, AnaHistoric
Ivan Doig, Winter Brothers
Lionel Kearnes, Convergences
Annie Dillard, The Living
Joy Kogawa, Obasan