Final Project -- Nature Writing

Nature Writing – Final Project

Due July 24^th, 2013 at 3:00 PM

In order to demonstrate your developing relationship with the natural world and proficiency with nature writing, you will expand, revise, and develop a collection of your eco-writing to submit to the Boulder Prep field guide.

Assignment:

Your task in this project is to prepare six nature writing pieces to the standard of a publishable field guide. This process will involve several steps:

1)    Identify and collect six strong drafts you have written.
(Depending on how many assignments you have completed, you may need to write more.)

2)    Expand and revise these drafts: add more detail and description; make stronger connections; incorporate intersections with the human world; draw out thematic meaning within your writing.
(You should complete this step once at the very least. Better writing pieces require more drafts.)

3)    Ask a peer, teacher, family member, or other responsible person to read and critique your drafts. Use feedback to re-shape and improve your writing.

4)    Polish your drafts: edit and correct grammar/mechanical errors, type, and format.

For your six submissions, you may use writing of whichever styles you want, including: ecopoetry, species-focused nature writing, non-fiction nature prose, short fiction, reflective writing, landscape description, responses to other nature writing, etc.

Additionally, to demonstrate your writing process, you must include at least one previous draft of each piece. The more drafts you include, the more clear it will be that you have engaged the iterative process of writing; no one gets it right the first time, and no piece of writing is ever really “finished.”

Tips for success on this project:

·      Start early. Start now. The quality of your ‘final’ drafts will directly correlate to the amount of time you dedicate to this project.

·      Ask questions and find support. Whether you come to me, your peers, other teachers, your family, or any other responsible person, you should not—and cannot—do this right all by yourself.

·      Consider all your options: if you draw from a large pool of your own writing, you will more easily find the writing with genuine potential.