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Unit 5 – Nature
Essential Questions:
What is the individual’s/society’s responsibility to the natural environment?
How do the values of a society lead to different views toward nature?
Assertions:
We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature,
it is always ourselves alone we are observing.”
G.C. Lichtenberg
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity, that ties us, not only to
beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.
Michael de Montaigne
New Terms
trope
syllogism
subordinate clause
straw man
propaganda
premise, major and minor
concession
polemic
deduction
hortatory
induction
inversion
nominalization
Terms to Date:
pathos
ethos
logos
persona
diction
connotation
allusion
figurative language
bias
analogies
paradox
rhetorical questions
sentence variety
pacing
imperative sentences
irony
tone
repetition
parallelism
pronouns; 1st, 2nd, 3rd
juxtaposition
allegory
evidence
mood
apostrophe
euphemism
metonymy
litotes
synecdoche
invective
didactic
colloquialism
motif
non sequitur
active voice
passive voice
Texts
“Caught in the Widow’s Web” by Gordon D. Grice
“The Courage of Turtles” by Edward Hoagland
From Walking by Henry David Thoreau
“The Artifice of the Natural” by Charles Siebert
“Talking to the Owls and Butterflies” by Jon (Fire) Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes
“In Search of Justice” by Nydia M. Velazquez
“Our Unhealthy Future Under Environmentalism” by John Berlau
From Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
From Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The Clan of One-Breasted Women” by Terry Tempest Williams
“Message to President Franklin Pierce” by Chief Seattle
“An Entrance to the Woods” by Wendell Berry
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2004 Nobel Peace Prize Speech by Wangari Muta Maathai
“Against Nature” by Joyce Carol Oates
Conversation: “It’s Easy Being Green” by Bill McKibben, “Counting Carbons” by Richard Conniff, “The
Future of Life” by Edward O. Wilson, “Ice Blankets” by Melissa Farlow and Randy Olson, “Is Climate
Change the 21st Century’s Most Urgent Environmental Problem?” by Indur M. Goklany, “GeoSigns:
The Big Thaw” by Daniel Glick
“Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White
“Where I Lived and What I Lived For” by Henry David Thoreau (and other short Walden quote)
“A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett (fiction)
“The Tables Turned” by William Wordsworth (poetry)
Reading images of nature and the environment – visual portfolio
“Cloud the Issue or Clear the Air?” (advertisement)
“Kindred Spirits” by Asher B. Durand (painting)
Excerpts from Food, Inc. (film - documentary), Wall-E. (film), and Inconvenient Truth (film - documentary)
In-Class Essay
From an AP Exam Out of Class Essay
Please write a personal essay that answers our essential question – “What is our responsibility to
nature?” -OR- Write an essay that demonstrate how a visual text illustrates a major idea espoused by one
of the authors we read. –OR- Write an essay that explores the validity of the following statement: “A true
conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers but borrowed from his
children.” –John James Audubon
Ongoing Assignment
Create a playlist of songs that creates an argument or a conversation of arguments about nature.
More info to follow.
Assignments:
-Blog posting – ~1 post per week; You will receive a grade for this at the end of the semester
-Weekly AP multiple choice quizzes on Thursdays
-Nightly reading assignments (reading assignments always mean annotation)
-Regular rhetorical analysis assignments (SOAPS-Tone, OPTICS, etc.)
-Quarter 2 Reading List must be completed before Semester Exams
Approximate Schedule
Week 1
T, Jan 3 – Collect notes from reading over break; Introduce SOAPStone using CNN.com and The Onion.
HW: Qtr 2 One Pagers due by Monday, Jan 23rd (feel free to submit early!)
W, Jan 4 – Finish SOAPStone; Qtr2 reading handout; Nature syllabus; begin Rachel Carson
HW: All 10 blogs due by Reading Day – if you’ve been posting a lot of videos or solo pictures, you should
finish strong with a text heavy post; Also, complete reading template for Carson.
R, Jan 5 – Multiple Choice Quiz; Clan of One-Breasted Women and discuss
HW: Read “The Artifice of the Natural” and “Talking to the Owls and Butterflies” for Monday.
Week 2
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M, Jan 9 – Go over types of questions for midterm; Practice outlines/Review sample essays. Review HW.
HW: Read “An Entrance to the Woods” and “Once More to the Lake”
T, Jan 10 – “Noble Prize Speech” and “Message to President…”
HW: Read “Conversation authors” for roundtable tomorrow.
W, Jan 11 –Roundtable conversation
HW: Prepare for midterms
R, Jan 12 – Multiple Choice Quiz; Review types of questions; Practice outlines/Review sample essays
HW: For next class meeting, please read Thoreau and Emerson pieces.
F, Jan 13 – READING DAY; No Class Meeting
Week 3
M, Jan 16 – MLK JR DAY – No School
T, Jan 17 – Midterms
W, Jan 18 – English Midterm 11:15 AM
R, Jan 19 – Midterms
F, Jan 20 - Makeup Midterms
Week 4
M, Jan 23 – Thoreau & Emerson
HW: Read “In Search of Justice” and “Our Unhealthy Future”
T, Jan 24 – Review HW; “Caught in the Widows Web” and “The Courage of Turtles”
HW: Finish texts for tomorrow
W, Jan 25 –“Against Nature” and Wordsworth
HW: Annotate images
R, Jan 26 – Multiple Choice Quiz; Images; Out of Class Essay draft due by midnight
HW: Out of Class Essay due by midnight tonight
Week 5
M, Jan 30 – “The White Heron” and images
HW: White Heron Response
T, Jan 31 – Film Selection
HW: Film Response
W, Feb 1 – Film Selection
HW: Essay due tomorrow by the end of the school day
R, Feb 2 – (Senior Retreat afterschool today)Multiple Choice Quiz; Out of Class Essay revision due by the
end of the school day. (No School F, Feb 3; Conferences)
Week 6
M, Feb 6 –Complete Film Selection
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HW: Prepare for In Class Essay and Final Playlist
T, Feb 7 – In Class Essay (from AP Exam)
HW: Final Playlist due tomorrow
W, Feb 8 – Final Playlist due – Share with class
HW: Nature and Science reflection due tomorrow
R, Feb 9 – Multiple Choice Quiz; Begin discussion of nature & science (Henrietta)
HW: Begin reading Henrietta Lacks
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