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Writing Nature

Module description

Writing about nature, ecology and place has flourished over the past twenty or so years, both in prose non-fiction, fiction and in poetry. By studying and writing poetry and/or nonfiction within this urgent and rapidly evolving ecological context, you will learn to identify and analyse techniques that will help you write your own complex and ethically-informed relationship to the natural world. This module is suitable for non-specialist students with skills in creative writing.

Module aims - intentions of the module

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of either narrative structure or poetic form pertaining to your chosen area of research and nature writing and genre
• 2. Demonstrate an advanced ability to gather, analyse and integrate appropriate theoretical and practical research into your development of nature writing projects
• 3. Demonstrate advanced reading skills necessary to analyse and adapt techniques and strategies present in model texts for your own nature writing projects
• 4. Evaluate your own work and the work of others at an advanced level, and demonstrate the ability to justify those evaluations in depth, and with reference to contemporary nature writing and theory

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Analyse and critically examine, at an advanced level, diverse forms of writing
• 6. Present sustained and persuasive written and oral arguments concerning your own creative writing and the work of other authors, both peers and published authors, and to use such ideas relating to your own work to develop their creative ideas
• 7. Demonstrate the ability to independently originate and develop creative writing projects that respond positively to appropriate criticism and genres and styles covered by the module

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 8. Demonstrate advanced communication skills and the ability to work both individually and in groups
• 9. Demonstrate advanced research and bibliographic skills, an advanced and intellectually mature capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument, advanced skills of creative expression, and a capacity to write clear and correct prose
• 10. Demonstrate an awareness of readership, publishability, market and an understanding of the purpose of formal structures, layouts, and techniques.
• 11. Demonstrate the ability to plan and manage time effectively in order to meet deadlines

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

· What do we talk about when we talk about ‘nature’? Using our own experience combined with a brief history

of ideas informing our construction of nature, we’ll build a map of some of the key themes addressed by the

module.

· Attentive Visions: How do writers name and describe the natural world? We’ll dwell on the relationship

between words and things in poetry and prose extracts to identify key stylistic features in nature writing and

eco-fiction and the philosophical positions they imply.

· Nature Narratives: How do we turn luminous details into compelling narratives? We’ll analyse contemporary

narrative tropes in nature writing to find ways of shaping our stories. We’ll focus particularly on narratives that

involve physical journeys into the wild – whatever and wherever that may be.

· The Nature Cure: Nature writing features strongly in the depression-recovery memoir genre: we’ll explore the

combination of personal psychological information with direct engagements with wild things that has made

this so compelling.

· Ecopoetry: We’ll explore the implications for poetic form of engaging with ecological thinking and the more

radical approaches to nature/ecological writing that poets have explored.

· Maps of the Territory: We’ll look at how the writers across genres have engaged with the politics of the

landscape and ecology by walking and rewriting overlooked, hidden, undervalued and damaged places. We’ll

also consider the role visual arts and other disciplines may play in helping us to produce creative maps of

places.

· Finding the Commons: We’ll consider the balance between experimentation and accessibility as we review,

shape and edit work for assessment.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

Indicative Core Texts

Fisher-Wirth & Street (ed.) The Ecopoetry Anthology

· Tim Dee (ed.) Ground Work: Writings on Places and People

· Kathleen Jamie Sightlines

· Nan Shepherd The Living Mountain

· Helen Macdonald H is for Hawk

· Alice Oswald Dart

· Roberts and Farley Edgelands: Journeys into England’s True Wilderness

Indicative Secondary Reading:

· Jim Dwyer, Where the Wild Books Are: A Field Guide to Eco-Fiction (University of Nevada Press, 2010).

· Roger Deakin, Waterlog

· Tim Robinson, Connemarra: A Little Gaelic Kingdom

· Robert MacFarlane, The Wild Places

· Jen Hadfield, Nigh-No-Place

· Edward Thomas, Collected Poems

· Tom Chivers & Martin Kratz (eds), Mount London: Ascents in the Vertical City

· Harriet Tarlo (ed), The Ground Aslant: An Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry

· Alice Oswald (ed.) The Thunder Mutters

· Gareth Evans and Di Robson, Towards Re-Enchantment: Place and Its Meaning

· Tim Morton, The Ecological Thought

· Richard Kerridge Writing the Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature

· Gruen, Jamieson & Schlottmann, Reflecting on Nature

· Mark Cocker Claxton, Field Notes from a Small Planet

· Jos Smith, The New Nature Writing: Rethinking the Literature of Place

· Richard Mabey, The Unofficial Countryside

· Richard Mabey, The Nature Cure

· Granta (102), The New Nature Writing (Summer 2008)

· Iain Sinclair, Lights Out for the Territory

Students opting for the poetry element will be expected to read whole collections from at least two contemporary/modern poets new to them in addition to the key texts. While adhering to syllabus plan, the balance of texts on the course may vary according to the interests and needs of students undertaking the module.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE course pages

Key words search

Creative writing, nonfiction, poetry, narrative, nature, ecology, environment