ORIENTATION WEEK SYLLABUS for FACULTY ONLY
FALL 2014
The title of these three linked Orientation Week sessions is:
Shaping Your Education and Your Academic Statement
All faculty will receive a packet of materials to distribute during the Orientation sessions.
BASIC SCHEDULE:
Monday, 9/22, 10-12: Convocation (a recording will be available on the College website)
1-3: Introduction and first seminar on the book
Tuesday, 9/23, 1-3: Seminar, Close Observation Workshop, and Orientation Essay introduction
Thursday, 9/25, 1-3: Sharing Orientation Essays and Looking Ahead to the Academic Statement
Note: At 3:15 each day, all students are due to attend a required session hosted by Student
Affairs. You will be provided with handouts for your students telling them the room
numbers.
The syllabus is composed of a series of integrated activities that build two things: 1) a set of
common understandings about academics at the College; and 2) an introduction to the Academic
Statement. The basic structure is designated in boldface Times New Roman font. Within that
structure, you may choose options that we’ve provided or develop your own for each activity. The
times the boxes, as well as the content for each day, are guidelines for you.
In addition, there is one set of activities, on Tuesday from 1-3 p.m., which EVERYONE should
follow closely: a workshop on close observation. If you’ve never done a workshop like this (it
begins on p. 6), consider reading it aloud with your students on Tuesday. You will be provided with
these written instructions to help students tune in to the practice of close observation. It’s a simple
workshop that anyone can conduct; you will be provided a simple magnifier to each student (to
keep) for this workshop. This workshop is designated in boldface Arial font. Within this structure,
you have the freedom to enjoy the discussions that you and your students want to have. Please note
that our aim should be consistent: to welcome students, give them a first taste of academic life at
Evergreen, and introduce the Academic Statement. There will be time at the Faculty Retreat for
seminars on Crow Planet and discussion of this syllabus. We hope we’ve made a contribution to
creating a rich and stimulating experience for all of us. Finally, we’re grateful to Alice Nelson,
Cindy Beck, Heather Heying, Susan Preciso, Randee Gibbons, Michelle Aguilar-Welles, Doreen
Swetkis, and Joli Sandoz and all the staff in the Office of College Advancement for improving on
the Syllabus during summer seminars on Crow Planet.
-- Nancy Koppelman, Trevor Speller, and Alison Styring
*
NOTE: If you are doing Orientation on Tuesday/Thursday or all day Saturday, or if you are
working with students in the Tacoma Program or the Reservation-Based Community Determined
program, please adapt the timing to suit your schedule.
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DAY 1:
INTRODUCTIONS AND SEMINAR
Day 1: Monday, Sept. 22, 1:00-3:00:
Introductions and Seminar
Attendance
O-Week overview
0:20
Introductions
TESC Philosophy
0:10
Seminar:
Crow Planet
1:15
What’s happening
tomorrow
0:15
1)
Take Attendance
You will receive a list of students assigned to your O-week
group. Please note who is there and who is not. If you have
students who are not on your list, please write their names and
ID numbers. You may want to build this into the introductions
so students can name themselves. Taking attendance is
VERY important for supporting students who, for one
reason or another, do not show up for your session. Those
students will be contacted and offered alternative times to
participate in Orientation. Someone will come by to pick up
your attendance sheet.
2) Faculty Introductions and O-Week Overview
(~5 minutes)
Introduce yourselves to the students. Emphasize that Orientation Week is not class. It’s an
opportunity to build acquaintances and esprit de corps, and get an introduction to the College. The
week’s activities are thus “low stakes” work. Students may be worried that they will need to
“perform” and to remember the whole book. Reassure them: that’s not what this time is for. The
idea is for us to HOST and welcome them. Describe what you appreciate about Evergreen, and
what you hope students will do/learn/accomplish during their time at the College.
3) Student Introductions (~15 minutes)
Option: Students go around and introduce themselves: where you’re from, year in college (for
transfer students), why you came to Evergreen, silly icebreaker (such as “tell us something that will
help us remember you” [a student once said, “My mother kissed Elvis”]).
Option: Students pair up and introduce themselves to each other. The group reconvenes and the
students introduce their partners to the whole group.
Option: Use other methods of introduction and ice-breaking that have been effective for you.
4) Evergreen’s Philosophy with an Emphasis on Student Responsibility (~10 minutes)
Please choose one or more of these aspects of Evergreen’s approach to education to share with
students, or discuss aspects absent from this list that matter the most to you.

Interdisciplinary study in learning communities: Evergreen’s distinctive contribution to
American higher education, and the feature of our work that most sets us apart from other
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colleges, is the team-taught, full-time interdisciplinary program. Faculty from different
disciplines who have interests in common combine their expertise and create an
inquiry/intellectual journey/curriculum. Students and faculty travel through that curriculum
together for one, two, or three quarters. Together, they become a learning community. All
members learn disciplinary knowledge and new approaches to questions that cross
disciplinary lines.

From the Social Contract: “Evergreen is an institution and a community that continues to
organize itself so that it can clear away obstacles to learning.”

No grades, no pre-determined majors and no credit distribution requirements: Evergreen
promotes a culture of self-evaluation and mutual evaluation. Students write a self-evaluation
at the end of every quarter which they may include in their transcripts at their discretion.
Students also have a voice in their transcripts in their Academic Statements. They may
enroll in studies throughout the curriculum without having to count credits in particular
fields (with the exception of the Bachelor of Science degree). They can invent their own
majors, or earn credits that add up to the equivalent of a traditional major, if they like.

No departments and no faculty rank: Students find a vital and dynamic curriculum which
faculty refresh regularly by creating new programs and courses, and by teaching with new
partners outside their fields of expertise. This feature of Evergreen’s intellectual culture
enables students to learn from many fields simultaneously and in dialogue with each other.

Student Responsibility: Because of no distribution requirements or prefabricated majors,
Evergreen students have unusual freedom. Faculty help students figure out how to be
responsible with the freedom the College offers, and how to make the most of their time
here. Liberal Arts does not mean “Libertarian Arts.”

Liberal arts: an old but ever-changing tradition in the western world, and now of interest
and value worldwide. The initial intent of the liberal arts was to be an education appropriate
for free people: those areas of knowledge that people need in order to know how to be free
self-governing citizens. Through the ages as the idea of freedom has changed, so has
accessibility to liberal arts education. It is now generally defined as studies comprising the
humanities, sciences, social sciences, and the arts (but not professional programs like
engineering or law). Evergreen is a public liberal arts college, which means we are
committed to the widest possible accessibility. We therefore encourage a form of education
which enacts specific values: a highly diverse community of students, staff, and faculty;
breadth and depth within disciplines; critical thinking; interdisciplinary approaches to
perpetual questions and real-world problems; experimentation; and creativity.

The Five Foci and the Six Expectations: The Five Foci enable you to profile what academic
life is like at Evergreen: Interdisciplinary Study, Collaborative Learning, Learning Across
Significant Differences, Personal Engagement, and Linking Theory with Practical
Applications. (Be aware that the Six Expectations envision a student on the cusp of
graduation. Orientation is at the beginning or the middle of most new students’ college
education.)
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5) Seminar on Crow Planet (~1 hour, 15 minutes)
a. Introduction to Seminar
Some students have never been in a book seminar. Discuss seminars: A seminar is for learning
from a book or another kind of text by discussing it with other people. You learn to think better
with a group than you can by yourself. You might ask students about their previous experiences
with group discussions: what makes them good and what thwarts them.
b. Responses to Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s Convocation Address
Take some time for students to discuss and respond to Haupt’s address. When you begin to discuss
the book itself, feel free, of course, to return to her address and discuss each in light of the other.
c. Why this book?
The book illustrates some of Evergreen’s central values:

The book enables readers to think deeply and broadly about environmental
stewardship. One of Evergreen’s central values is captured in its Mission Statement:
“Evergreen supports and benefits from local and global commitment to social justice,
diversity, environmental stewardship and service in the public interest.”

The book encourages each individual to use her or his innate abilities to have fresh and
unique experiences of the everyday world. One of Evergreen’s central values is personal
engagement.

The book exemplifies an interdisciplinary education. Haupt’s sources show that she
ranges freely across philosophy, natural history, science, poetry, and the social sciences.
She is able to draw from many fields to learn about and understand her topic. One of
Evergreen’s central values is interdisciplinary inquiry, captured here in one of the Six
Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate: “A successful Evergreen graduate will have the
ability to appreciate and critically evaluate a range of topics across academic disciplines. As
you explore these disciplines, you will develop a greater curiosity toward the world around
you and its interconnections that will enhance your skills as an independent, critical
thinker.”

The book shows how thinking differently about the relationship between the natural
world and the built environment can transform how you live. One of Evergreen’s
central values is linking theory (“I really care about the environment”) with practice (“I can
learn to understand my relationship to the environment differently and better, which inspires
me to live differently as well”).
d. Discussion of the Book’s Content: Invite students to consider the book’s structure. For
example, note the title, and particularly its claim to be a book of “essential” wisdom. What might be
essential about what the book is trying to teach? Notice, too, the chapter titles. All of them are
gerunds: “Getting Up,” “Preparing,” “Reading,” “Walking,” and so on. This form of the verb—the
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“ing” form—suggests that each chapter is going to be about what people do. Why do you think
Haupt uses this form for her chapter titles? You might invite the students to look at the
bibliography, which begins on p. 223. Note the wide range of texts that she employs in the book:
philosophy, natural history, poetry, essays. What can you say about the nature of Haupt’s own
education and interests? You might also have a brief discussion about how to approach a text for
the first time. Try to understand it first, and once you do understand it, feel free to make a fair
critique. You’ll find that the options below all include both approaches: first, reading for
understanding, and second, critique.
Detailed renditions of these topics are provided in Appendix A, including questions and passages.
Only the main points are listed here.





Option: “Paying Attention” is a central theme of the book and of Convocation.
Option: The book challenges the Nature/Culture Boundary.
Option: The book advocates Coexistence.
Option: The book shows that naming implies social relationships.
Option: The book shows that living ethically begins with individual knowledge.
e. Discussion of the Author: Some students are likely to collapse a discussion of the book’s
content with a discussion of the author. This can be a way to avoid the content of the book, but may
also merit some attention. The author reveals herself as a comfortable middle class woman dealing
with the tensions between career and motherhood. There are times when she is quite candid about
her struggles, and moments when she makes sense of her own choices by critiquing those of others.
For example, “[I] decided that I would do what the other primates do—raise my daughter myself
rather than hiring strangers to do so” (p. 28). She also mentions some high end consumer items; for
example, “Ready for my daily walk, I tie on my Keen Urbanator sneakers…” (p. 100). Students
may have a tendency to dismiss some of the author’s ideas by fixating on these windows into her
private life. This can inspire a good discussion about the difference between an author and the
author’s work.
Q: Haupt is clearly an educated woman who is doing her very best to be both self-aware
and environmentally aware. Where does she succeed and where are her blind spots? Where
might your blind spots be?
Q: The fact that Haupt is female leaves her open to critiques that often seem misplaced with
male authors. For example, Haupt discusses raising her daughter, the tedium of staying
home with a young child, the fear of going crazy, visits to a psychiatrist, regret about living
in an urban setting, and her image of herself as a young mother versus its reality. She did
not live up to her ideals. This is a common struggle for women, and particularly mothers,
who want to or must work. Would we judge a male author—and especially a male author
with children—the same way we might be tempted to judge Haupt?
Q: Haupt’s main aim is to show you what she learned by spending her time slowing down,
tuning in, observing, reading, thinking, wandering, and musing. There’s virtually no
evidence that she participates in collective social change efforts. Authors are, of course,
quite active: it takes a lot of work, discipline, skill, and effort to write a book. Haupt does
not appear to draw a significant difference between thinking and doing. Does this open her
up to criticism? If so, is the criticism fair or unfair? Why or why not?
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6. What’s ahead for tomorrow: (15 minutes)
Tomorrow, we’ll start with a workshop on “paying attention.” You’ll spend some time practicing
some of the skills that Haupt discusses, and you’ll start to write about what you learn. You’ll begin
to think about your Orientation Essay, which is an essay that students write as they enter the
College. The Orientation Essay will be the foundation for your first Academic Statement. The
College requires you to include an Academic Statement about your education in your transcript in
order to graduate. You start thinking about that statement now in the form of your Orientation
Essay. In your fall quarter program, you’ll revisit this essay and faculty will spend several hours
helping you to think broadly about your education and write a first draft of your Academic
Statement. You’ll be able to revise your statement as often as you like before graduation.
Tomorrow, bring a notebook and a pen or pencil, and Crow Planet!
PLEASE REMIND YOUR STUDENTS TO



ATTEND THE NEXT REQUIRED ORIENTATION SESSION FROM 3:15-5:00 this
afternoon, and to
come back tomorrow to this same classroom at 1:00 for the next session with this
group.
In your packet of materials, you have a set of handouts telling your students where to go
today, tomorrow, and Thursday at 3:15. Please hand them out before your students leave.
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Day 2: Tuesday, Sept. 23, 1:00-3:00:
Paying Attention Workshop and
DAY 2:
Introduction to the Orientation Essay
PAYING ATTENTION WKSHP
INTRO TO ORIENTATION ESSAY
1) Take Attendance
Attendance
Review Haupt’s
attention habits
0:10
2)
Briefly review some of the habits of paying attention
that Haupt teaches. (~10 Minutes)
Workshop:
Paying Attention
Sharing Work
Introduce/ hand out
Orientation Essay
1:00
0:50
3)
Paying Attention Workshop (~60 minutes): Every group
should do this activity as written. It forms the basis of the
Orientation Essay and of the introduction to the Academic
Statement.
Let the students know that they’re now going to practice paying
attention individually—a central theme in Crow Planet.
DISTRIBUTE MAGNIFIERS AND HANDOUT OF THE
SECTION BELOW. Review the handout with the students
before you set them loose.
Individually, you will spend some time outside, paying attention to something in nature. This is your
subject. You may walk for a few minutes into the woods just beyond the building, or go to a grassy
spot on Red Square, or simply look between bricks where something is growing. Go anywhere NOT
inside a building. While outside, focus your attention on some aspect of nature. This may be anything
you would define as nature (a bird, grass growing through a crack in pavement, a tree, a spider, dirt, a
worm, a rock, an insect, a flower). The definition and selection are up to you, but don’t be fooled by
size: an ant can be just as instructive as an oak tree.
1. Observe your subject for 20 minutes: With your full attention, focus on your subject. Use as
many senses as you reasonably can (e.g. you might be able to see, smell, touch, and possibly
even hear a plant; you may be able to see and hear a bird, but to attempt to touch the bird or
get close enough to smell it, would not be good). For several minutes, observe with your naked
senses. Then, if appropriate to your subject, use your magnifier to enhance your ability to see
and observe more detail. Consider your subject in context as well. Close your eyes and listen.
Use your skin to determine what’s happening with wind, sun, precipitation, and temperature.
If your subject doesn’t move very fast or at all, you may be able to focus closely on it with your
magnifier. If your subject moves, follow it from a reasonable distance (don’t scare it and do
your best to avoid affecting its behavior by coming too close or by making sudden movements
or noises). See what happens if you hold perfectly still in one place in utter silence for a few
minutes. What is the appearance of your subject? Notice the placement of your subject in the
larger context of its surroundings. Where is it occurring? What is it doing?
2. Represent your subject for 20 minutes: Based on your observations, create a representation of
your subject. Make a sketch or drawing, provide a detailed written description of the features of
your subject, or represent what you observe in another way. Even if you are not used to drawing,
don’t let that stop you from trying. You’ll discover that the attempt to draw changes the way you see
and what you notice about your subject. Remember Haupt’s quotation from the zoologist Louis
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Agassiz, who said to his aspiring student Samuel Scudder in 1859, “A pencil is one of the best of
eyes” (p. 145). You can also make a list of your subject’s attributes, record several views of it from
different angles, measure it, describe its color, texture, weight, and so on. You can capture it in
words by attempting to record its details in a narrative description. “Paint” a picture with words, if
you can, and show what you’ve observed—the parts and the whole.
3. Reflect on your observations in writing for 20 minutes: Spend this time first thinking about,
reflecting on, and then documenting in writing your 40 minutes of experience observing your
subject. What did you learn from spending this time—which may have seemed like a lot longer than
40 minutes—observing and representing your subject? Certainly you learned a lot about your
subject. But move a step further and consider what you learned about the experience of paying close
attention to something. Did the skill come naturally, or was it an effort for you? Was it dull and did
the time drag, or did you find yourself getting into it and losing track of time? Do your observations
of your subject lead to ideas about other things, and if so, what are they? The writing may take on
any form, from a narrative description to a piece of fiction or poetry. Follow your instincts—trust
yourself—and write what comes to mind. How did looking at your subject change you?
4. Be sure to return to the group a little after 2:00. Please don’t remove anything from the
environment (however, if you were tempted to take your subject with you, you might write about
that).
4) Share Writing/Representations,
Assign the Orientation Essay for Thursday,
and introduce Academic Statement (~50 minutes)
When the group comes back together a little after 2:00, invite students to share what subject they observed,
and a brief synopsis of what they wrote or drew. (15-20 min)
Then introduce the Orientation Essay (10-15 min) and Academic Statement (10-15 min):
5) HANDOUT (These will be provided for you to give to your students).
For Thursday’s session, take your experience of observing, representing, and reflecting on your subject and
write a brief (maximum 2-pp. double-spaced) essay about your own learning as you are thinking about it
right now. In other words, turn your attention inward and observe yourself. This is a first try at writing
about your education: a practice you’ll return to regularly while you’re an Evergreen student. (Remember:
An essay is an attempt to express something in words. Writing will help you figure out what you think and
how to express yourself effectively.)

Bring the skills you’ve just been practicing with your subject to your own experiences and plans for
your education. What to YOU want to pay attention to as a college student? What holds your
interest, and how do your interests inform your educational hopes, plans, and/or goals?

What have you been overlooking? Of course, it is hard to know what we are overlooking, but today
you may have discovered something completely new about a familiar subject—a rock, a tree, an
insect, some grass—by practicing close observation for about an hour. Apply this kind of focus and
thought to the range of things that matter to your own life, and that are informing your educational
plans. You may be able to identify some things you hadn’t noticed before.
This is LOW STAKES writing: that is, you will not hand it in. You’ll store it on your computer and in the
College’s On Line Record System in your my.evergreen.edu. Only you and fall quarter faculty will have
access to it once you turn it in.
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PLEASE REMIND YOUR STUDENTS TO ATTEND THE NEXT REQUIRED ORIENTATION
SESSION FROM 3:15-5:00 this afternoon, and to come back on Thursday to this same classroom at
1:00 for the next session with this group.
DAY 3:
SHARING ESSAYS
LOOKING TO ACADEMIC STMT
Day 3: Thursday, Sept. 25, 1:00-3:00:
Sharing Orientation Essays and Looking
Ahead to the Academic Statement
1) Take Attendance
Attendance
Sharing Orientation
Essays
1:00
Looking ahead to
the Academic
Statement
0:30
Closing questions
and comments
0:30
2) Sharing Orientation Essays (~60 minutes) Students bring
fleshed-out essays, typed or handwritten (some students won’t
be able to type them; the important thing is for students to
write them) to share with faculty and other students. Students
won’t “hand them in.”
Option: Assemble students in groups of three. Each student
reads the Orientation Essay aloud. Have each group discuss
the essays and talk about their individual and, if you see them,
collective aspirations at the College.
Option: Have each student in your whole group read their
individual Orientation Essays aloud. No discussion as the
essays are read: just have students read them and listen. Last
year, some faculty did this and said it was very moving and
illuminating.
3) Looking Ahead to the Academic Statement (~30 minutes)
HANDOUT (greatly abbreviated version of what’s below)
What happens to the Orientation Essay?
It serves as the basis for the first draft of your Academic Statement. The Academic Statement is a
graduation requirement. (Note well: if you have a seminar of first-year students, they will write
their Academic Statements about their education at Evergreen. [An occasional first-year student
might have a few college credits already.] If you have a seminar of transfer students, their
Academic Statements may include references to their studies at previous institutions. Adjust your
discussion according to these different circumstances.)
From the catalog:

The minimum requirement for the Bachelor of Arts or the Bachelor of Science
degree is 180 credits, and an Academic Statement of up to 750 words to be written
by the student. In the statement, students summarize and reflect carefully on their
10
liberal arts education. Students begin work on the statement by writing an
Orientation Essay when they first enroll, and then develop and revise it annually
under the guidance of faculty. The final version of the Academic Statement
introduces each student’s transcript.
Self-evaluation has been part of Evergreen’s educational experiment since the beginning.
Everyone writes them: students, faculty staff, and administrators alike. The Academic Statement
extends this long-standing practice and brings a new degree of rigor to it. You might discuss selfevaluations, noting that your students’ self-evaluations become part of faculty portfolios, and are the
building-blocks for Academic Statements.
In fall quarter, all programs of 8 credits or more will devote several hours helping you develop a
first draft of your Academic Statement. The Orientation Essay is the foundation for your work
on your Academic Statement. Enter your Orientation Essay in the on-line record system under
“Academic Statement” in your my.evergreen.edu. (You are also advised to save all your work on
your computer or thumbdrive.) Every fall, you will have the opportunity to revisit and revise your
draft from the previous year. If you are enrolled in a half-time or full-time program, your faculty
will spend six hours of program time helping you to draft the first version of your Academic
Statement. If you are taking courses only, the faculty adviser in Academic Advising will be in
touch with you about workshops to support your Academic Statement. You will also find on-line
resources for students, and the Writing Center can provide tutorial support and periodic
workshops to help you.
Throughout the year, faculty will provide other support to help students reflect on and plan their
education at Evergreen, and imagine and prepare for life after graduation. This support includes:

All-Campus Days: In both winter and spring quarters, a Wednesday afternoon is set aside when
no classes are scheduled. Faculty and staff will lead events on navigating the curriculum,
careers, graduate school pathways, developing Academic Statements, and so on. The dates this
year are Wednesday, March 4th, and Wednesday, May 13th.

Writing Center: Continuing support for writing in general and periodic workshops on the
Academic Statement in particular.
Option: You might want to introduce the Academic Statement as part of the transcript. (Our group
had different views on whether such information was important at this point, whether students
would be suffering from information overload, etc. Faculty should use their own judgment.) You
might describe what an Academic Statement is, what a transcript looks like—program descriptions,
faculty evaluations, potentially self-evaluations (at the student’s discretion). The Academic
Statement introduces all this to readers, and is the first document in the transcript. It will allow you
to reflect on and describe your own education. Who were you when you arrived at Evergreen? What
did you hope to accomplish? What did you accomplish? What areas did you study and which were
most important? Remember that, in the statement, YOU will define and describe your major areas
of study and the direction in which they are taking you.
4) Closing questions and comments (~30 minutes)
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Use your discretion to close the session as you see fit. You might tell students that many of their
questions will be answered through their own experiences at the College over the next several
weeks. You might say supportive and encouraging things about their time ahead. Many faculty
have said that they’d like to meet again with their Orientation Week group sometime during fall
quarter. Feel free to collect email addresses and make a plan for coffee or lunch. Students would
very likely be quite pleased to do so. You are also encouraged to talk about the importance of
cultivating good habits, such as time management, collaboration, note-taking (which they practiced
on Tuesday), and especially seeking help when they need it.
PLEASE REMIND YOUR STUDENTS TO ATTEND THE NEXT REQUIRED ORIENTATION
SESSION FROM 3:15-5:00 this afternoon.
***
APPENDIX A: DETAILED DISCUSSION TOPICS FOR CROW PLANET, DAY 1
The following discussion topics flesh out some of the ideas presented more briefly in the main
document.
Option: “Paying Attention” is a central theme of the book and of Convocation.
It’s fair to say that Crow Planet develops the notion of “paying attention” as “seeing.” Haupt makes
a great deal of space for the practice of seeing as informed, active, persistent observation and
recognition. This is most evident in the second half of the second chapter (pp. 48-62), and the
seventh chapter in its entirety (pp. 141-61). The long list of qualities from Chapter 2 will stand
almost all of our students in good stead in almost any discipline they approach here at Evergreen.
It’s also worth noting that for Haupt, the idea of seeing is strongly connected with a sense of wonder
(see particularly pp. 156-158). Wonder and enthusiasm keep our seeing active and alive. This is not
worsened by exposure and practice and repetitiveness and detail – rather, those are the very
elements which allow wonder to develop and flourish and grow. To quote Haupt quoting Socrates:
“the more I know, the more I know I don’t know,” (28) and this is the exhilaration of seeing ever
more deeply.
Q: Is “paying” attention an apt metaphor? Consider what we seem to be giving – or giving
up – when we “pay” attention. And in turn, what are we getting in return? In what ways
might we be “investing” attention? How is “paying attention” different from other kinds of
“paying”?
Q: In many ways, “paying attention” can be another term for seeing with new eyes, and for
re-considering what initially seems obvious or overlooked. What skills do we need in order
to re-envision problems and phenomena in new ways? What do we need to learn? How do
we need to learn?
Q: Every author makes decisions about what to include and what to omit from her analysis.
And every author has blind spots—she simply can’t see everything. What doesn’t Haupt
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pay attention to in her exploration of wildness in her urban environment? Can you tell the
difference between what she chooses to omit and what’s omitted because she can’t see it?
Passages on “paying attention”: pp. 24-26, 42-48, 50-62, 82-85, 105-7, 143-161 (Ch. 7),
170-72, 174-78.
Option: The book challenges the Nature/Culture Boundary.
At least since the Renaissance, humans have divided human “cultural” activities from the “natural”
world. Rather than dividing nature and culture into separate spheres of non-human and human, wild
and domestic, Haupt wants to redefine these concepts (34-35). She makes the case that our culture –
our urban environment, our learning, and our human activities – takes place in a wider sphere of
nature. There is a danger in seeing nature as something “out there,” separate from us. Seeing nature
as somehow separate allows us to wall it off, and not understand it as part of our daily lives (34).
Q: What are the differences between nature and culture? How do we establish this
boundary? In what ways does Haupt try to reimagine this boundary? What is nature, for
humans? What is culture, for crows?
Q: Haupt spends a lot of time showing how culture is part of nature. But she does not really
discuss culture itself—that is, she doesn’t gloss the markers of culture: language, habit,
memory, ritual, art, and history, for example. How would an analysis of culture itself add to
her analysis?
Passages on the nature/culture boundary: pp. 8-9, 12-13, 34-35, 59-60, 65-67, 72-77, 84-85,
113-15, 119-23, 134-35, 165-67, 176-79, 197-98, 199-202.
Option: The book advocates Coexistence.
The concept of co-existence is a central point for Haupt. We live in a “zoöpolis” (166-67) in which
humans and non-humans must exist together. Diversity, then, is not separated into spheres of
“natural diversity” or “cultural diversity”: a biological diversity of all organisms, including humans,
should coexist in the same environment. To engage in such a diverse environment requires different
practices of seeing, knowing, and relating to the world in general.
Q: Where might we find a successful zoöpolis? How do we achieve a biological diversity
including human beings? How do we go about thinking of ourselves as animals? How do we
go about thinking of animals as humans?
Q: The challenges of coexistence are different in different parts of the world. Does Haupt’s
advocacy for coexistence ensure an ecologically constructive relationship everywhere?
Would it matter where coexistence takes place? What does Haupt leave out in her analysis
of coexistence?
Passages on coexistence: pp. 9-10, 12-13, 33-35, 120-23, 134-35, 165-181 (Ch. 8), esp. 169174, 199-202, 218-19.
Option: The book shows that naming implies social relationships.
Human beings give each other and ourselves individual names. We also accord names to pets and
other domesticated animals, but only rarely to wild animals. Haupt suggests that naming implies a
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kind of recognition and responsibility to the named. If something has a word or name, it gets to
exist in certain ways. Thus, naming has a profound effect on our mental concept of the entity being
named. Naming implies caring and connotes a social relationship. In this way, naming gets to the
heart of Haupt’s claim for coexistence with the natural world in a zoöpolis. Naming a wild animal
brings it into a social relationship with human beings in a way which demands our responsibility.
Q: What animals does Haupt name in her book? How does it change her relationship to
those animals? What objects or entities have you named? Why? Consider material objects,
animals, other humans, and yourself. What responsibilities did you have to the named entity
that made it different? What might we name and un-name?
Q: Naming also implies power and ownership. In other words, for a name to stick and have
meaning beyond the wishes of the individual namer, the namer must have some authority.
What names might the Latin names for plant and animal species have replaced? How is
Haupt’s notion of naming culturally embedded, enabling some things to be seen and valued
and controlled, and not other things?
Passages: pp. 3-5, 14-15, 53-55, 133-40, 176-179.
Option: The book shows that living ethically begins with individual knowledge.
It is worth considering Haupt’s position that living ethically begins with knowing, rather than
acting. Developing environmental ethics requires a change of mind, which is far more difficult to
enact than periodically carrying out the recycling. Haupt’s question is not how to save the
environment, but how to live ethically in our environment. To coexist with animals in the zoöpolis,
Haupt writes, we need to think “sometimes, and as best we can, from the standpoint of a nonhuman
animal” (174). Shifting perspective is thus a crucial part of her environmental ethics. We need to
think like mathematicians, biologists, and philosophers—and also think like crows and speak their
languages. Although we may never actually think like crows, it’s important to try. (Note that some
of us with pets may already be in the habit of trying to think like our favorite animals.) This
commitment meshes well with an interdisciplinary pedagogy. Adopting these casts of mind proves
necessary in times of crisis to imagine new solutions to our problems. We need to imagine the
crow’s perspective in order to ensure our own survival.
Q: What is the relationship between theory and praxis, knowledge and action? How does
Haupt imagine it? What different ways of knowing will be important to your future?
Q: Individual knowing is wonderful, and can lead to great insight. Does Haupt have
anything to say about the relationship between individual knowing and collective knowing,
responsibility, and action? Why or why not?
Passages: pp. 6-7, 12-13, 47-48, 59-61, 82-85, 120-23, 169-174, 189-192, 199-204.