Environmental Studies - Spring 1999

Sarah Rabkin, Lecturer in Writing

Winter Quarter, 1999

Tu-Th, 10:00-11:45, Kresge 325

COURSE OVERVIEW

This course focuses on some of the writing-related challenges that environmental studies majors are likely to encounter as students and in environmentally-related jobs. We will address several specific writing tasks and formats, such as meeting summaries, policy memos, persuasive letters, reports of empirical work, legal documents, and research-based essays. More generally, we will examine the qualities that characterize artful, persuasive writing in a variety of genres, and we will consider how such writing can effect positive change in the environmental arena.

Students should expect to complete in-class writing exercises and weekly revisions of written assignments, participate in several peer editing sessions, and attend at least one tutorial meeting. Deadlines are frequent and usually non-negotiable, so only take the class if you are willing to keep up with the papers. The quality-even the possibility-of discussions hinges on your preparedness, so you are expected to do the assigned reading faithfully on time. There will be no examination, but you will be required to hand in a detailed self-evaluation at quarter's end. Please keep all returned work until then.

There is usually a waiting list for this class. If you miss or come late to the first or second meeting, you may lose your place.

Sarah Rabkin, 204 Kresge. Office phone: 9-5195. Message: Kresge Faculty Services,

9-2781. E-mail: srabkin@cats.ucsc.edu Hours: Wednesdays 1:00-3:00 and by appointment.

Winifred (Fred) Frick, fredfrik@cats.ucsc.edu. More information in class.

A Writer's Reference, 3rd Edition, by Donna Hacker, Bedford/St. Martin's

Writing and Thinking in the Social Sciences, by Friedman & Steinberg

A course reader

A MESSAGE FROM SLUG BOOKS: The textbooks and reader for this class will be available exclusively from the Slug Books Co-op. Please DO NOT purchase your textbooks from the Baytree Bookstore as they may be carrying them against the wishes of your instructor. Slug Books is a student/alumni-run co-op discount textbook store. Payment may be made by cash, check, or credit card, and returns are accepted through 1/15/99. Slug Books is located at 224 Cardiff Place, by 7-11 and Bay Federal Credit Union, just two blocks from the base of campus. Our hours are 10AM to 8PM for the first week of the quarter (January 4th to 8th) and 10AM to 6PM Saturday and Sunday of the first weekend of the quarter. Our normal hours are 10AM to 6PM Monday thru Friday.. For more information please contact Slug Books at 469-SLUG, info@slugbooks.com, or http://www.slugbooks.com

1. Note-taking and summary (one page): 1st draft due 1/14; final draft due 1/19

2. Rant-and-rave paper (two pages max): in-class assignment, 1/19

3. Policy memo (three pages max): due 1/28 (a revision may be required)

4. Research essay proposal (two pages of text plus annotated bibliography): 1st draft due 2/4; final draft due 2/9

5. Research essay  (8-10 pages): due 3/2 (exchange copies w/2 other students)

6. Letter to an editor (one page max): 1st draft due 3/9; final draft due 3/11

7. Research essay revision (8-10 pages): due no later than 3/17

8. Self


COURSE CALENDAR

Please complete all readings by the beginning of the week for which they are assigned. All readings are either in the course reader or in the course texts.

Please complete this first set of readings by January 12 at the latest.

Edward Abbey, "A Writer's Credo," from One Life at a Time, Please, pp. 161-178

Peter Elbow, "Feedback," from Writing With Power, pp. 237-263

Linda Flower, "Transform Writer-Based Prose into Reader-Based Prose," reprinted in Kevin J. Harty, Strategies for Business and Technical Writing, pp. 53-63

Anne Lamott, "Writing Groups," from Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, pp. 151-171

Virago, Rabkin, & Draper, miscellaneous guidelines & notes for writing groups

Tuesday, January 5 Course overview and introductory business; strategies for note- taking and summary

Thursday, January 7 More on note-taking and summary, including a practice run.

Daniel Press, guest speaker.

Tuesday, January 12 Writing groups: the art of giving and receiving useful editorial criticism.

Friedman & Steinberg, Introduction & Chapter 2

Hacker, section on composing

Peter Elbow, "Freewriting Exercises," in Writing Without Teachers, pp. 3-11

Natalie Goldberg, "The Rules of Writing Practice," in Wild Mind, pp. 1-5

Thursday, January 14 Draft of summary due; meet in writing groups. Freewriting and other tools to make drafting easier.

Tuesday, January 19  Revised summary due. In-class rant-and-rave.

Friedman & Steinberg, Chapters 1 and 3

Hacker, chapter on documentation (esp. APA style)

Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, "Guidelines for

Writing a Memo in Government"

David Rothernberg, "How the Web Destroys the Quality of Students' Research Papers," Chronicle of Higher Education, August 1997

Rabkin, "Doing Interviews for Class Papers"; "Doing Internal Research"

Thursday, January 21 Policy memo introduced.

Tuesday, January 26 More on policy memos. The research-and-writing process.

Friedman & Steinberg, Chapter 4

Sylvan Barnet & Hugo Bedau, "Critical Reading: Getting Deeper Into Arguments," from Current Issues and Enduring Questions, pp. 28-49

Irene Lurkis Clark, "Developing an Argument for a Researched Paper," from

Taking a Stand: A Guide to the Researched Paper

Thursday, January 28 Policy memo due; meet in groups. Proposal introduced.

Tuesday, February 2 Argument, persuasion, and the research-based essay.

Friedman & Steinberg, Chapters 5 and 12

John Trimble, "Middles," from Writing With Style, pp. 37-54

Feiock & West, "Testing Competing Explanations for Policy Adoption: Municipal Solid Waste Recycling Programs,"Political Research Quarterly, June 1993

Sample student research papers for ENVS 156, in the reader

Thursday, February 4 Research essay proposal due; meet in groups. Research essay

draft introduced.

Tuesday, February 9  Successful research articles and essays.

Mono Lake: National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, pp. 381-390

Kevin J. Harty, 1992. Strategies for Business and Technical Writing, Selections from Chapter 2, "Problems With Language."

"Plain Words: The War on Jargon and Clichés," in Barzun & Graff, The Modern Researcher, pp. 293-313

Patricia Nelson Limerick, "Dancing With Professors: The Trouble With Academic Prose," New York Review of Books

Virginia L. Warren, "Guidelines for Non-Sexist Use of Language," APA Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession

William C. Paxson, "Nondiscriminatory Writing," from The Business Writing

Handbook

(optional) Alan Siegel, "The Plain English Revolution," from Across the Board

Thursday, February 11 Language; jargon. Letter introduced; successful and not-so- successful letters.

Tuesday, February 16  Exchange Day: No class. Monday classes meet today

Thursday, February 18 More on language & jargon.

Friedman & Steinberg, Chapters 6 and 7

Gary Paul Nabhan & Ann Zwinger, "Field Notes and the Literary Process," in Writing Natural History: Dialogues With Authors, pp. 67-90

J. V. Ramsen, Jr., "On Taking Field Notes," American Birds, September 1977, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 946-953

John A. Murray, "Journals," in The Sierra Club Nature Writing Handbook

John Muir, "A Wind-Storm in the Forests"

Tuesday, February 23 Tips on writing up a field study. (Possible guest speaker)

Thursday, February 25 Writing up natural-history field observation notes. (Possible guest speaker: Maggie Fusari)



WEEK EIGHT: Activism Through Writing: Effective Letters to the Editor

Sarah Lubman article & Daniel Press response, SJ Mercury News

Possible further reading TBA

Tuesday, March 2 Research essay due; exchange for at-home commentary in writing. Letter assignment introduced.

Thursday, March 4 More on letters.

Wallace Stegner, Wilderness Letter

Patricia Nelson Limerick, "Precedents to Wisdom," in The Geography of Hope:

A Tribute to Wallace Stegner

Harry F. Recher, "Simple Journalists or Simple Scientists?: Are Environmental Issues Too Complex for the Media?", Australian Zoologist, December 1992, pp. 19-23

Tuesday, March 9 Letter draft due; meet in groups.

Thursday, March 11 Letter revision due. A video case-study in the uses of rhetoric.

Class evaluations. End-of-quarter business and final farewells.

Tuesday, March 17 We won't have a final exam, but your final research essay revision (along with my marked copy of the rough draft) and self evaluation will be due to my box no later than 4 p.m. today.

Revised 8/2/04.